[accessibleimage] Japan - Art show by visually impaired offers a hands-on experience

The Japan Times
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Art show by visually impaired offers a hands-on experience

By MASAMI ITO, Staff writer

Seeing with their hands -- that is what young visually disabled artists did to 
create works for an ongoing exhibition at Gallery Tom.

A sculpture of a woman walking with a guide dog is displayed at an exhibition featworks created by children with visual disabilities at Gallery Tom in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward. 

Located in the quiet Shoto district of Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, Gallery Tom is the 
only art gallery in Japan that caters to the visually impaired by letting 
visitors touch the displays.

This summer, the exhibit "Boku-tachi no Tsukutta Mono 2005" ("The Things We Made 
2005") features about 60 works made by children at schools for the blind from around Japan, 
including Tokyo and Hokkaido, Gifu and Fukuoka prefectures.

Most were ceramic sculptures, including a bowl of "udon" noodles with 
delicately made leeks and shiitake that looked good enough to eat, and a bunch of fresh 
blue hydrangeas that brightened up the gallery.

A first-year high school student in Fukui Prefecture sculpted a woman walking 
with a guide dog, stating in her explanation for the work that it portrayed her 
ideal self at the age of 20 -- walking smartly around town.

"It does not matter whether a person can see when creating art," gallery director Harue 
Murayama said. "Art is created through sensitivity, not vision. That is how everyone creates 
art."

Murayama and her husband, Ado, established the private gallery in 1984 after their 
visually impaired son, Ren, said that "even blind people have the right to see 
(Auguste) Rodin."

Since then, Gallery Tom has held countless exhibitions that let visitors "see" 
art through their sense of touch.

Her son, however, passed away in 1999.

"At that point, I felt I couldn't go on," said Murayama, whose husband died in 2002. 
"But I realized I had to continue (this work) because I wanted to leave something in this life 
-- just like my son and my husband did."

With this renewed burst of energy, Murayama continued holding exhibitions, 
symposiums and lectures by artists to educate visually impaired people in art.

This exhibition, which included artworks by students from elementary school to 
high school, has been held periodically for a decade, but this year's is a 
special treat, Murayama said, because the works are expected to be included 
among a set of pieces to tour Spain, thanks to the Organizacion Nacional de 
Ciegos Espanoles (ONCE).

This national association for the blind was launched in 1938 to give social and 
financial aid to blind people. It organizes a lottery -- an operation that 
employs over 23,000 blind or disabled people -- and has been actively involved 
in promoting blind artists and helping young visually impaired people receive 
education.

Murayama said that, thrilled as she is with the invitation from the highly 
profitable association, she is utterly disappointed Japan does not have a 
similar support system.

"In a way, I am acting against all forms of discrimination," Murayama said. "But if 
you stop and think for a moment, you will realize that what I am doing is a matter of course. . . . 
If people realize that (a person with a disability) is just the same as any other person, there 
would be no need for me to take such action."

"Boku-tachi no Tsukutta Mono 2005" runs until Sept. 18 at Gallery Tom, a 7-minute walk from Shinsen Station on the Keio Inokashira Line or a 15-minute walk from JR Shibuya Station. The gallery is open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily except Mondays. For more information, call (03) 3467-8102 or visit www.gallerytom.co.jp 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050827f1.htm


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