[accessibleimage] exhibitions,dance,film

Hi,
Articles about exhibitions, a blind dancer, film, internet and a color blind student wining a $40,000 art scholarship.
Article about the exhibiton in Seattle might be a resend from alist member, was unsure if same news source or not.
Regards,
Lisa


dancer
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1863&dept_id=152656&newsid=14784544&PAG=461&rfi=9
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4457793.stm
http://wiscassetnewspaper.maine.com/2005-04-21/school_cuts_opposition.html
excerpt from article
Kevin Jewett said, despite being partially color blind, he won first in a regional art competition and was awarded a $40,000 art scholarship from the Maine College of Art. He said he could never have done this without Tom Block, who spent hours of one-on-one time with him.

Exhibit encourages blind, sighted to see with their hands
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002340411_blind20.html

DO TOUCH EXHIBIT (New Jersey)
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050601/COMMUNITY/506010367/1065

Film of, by the blind but for all
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1128605.cms

Forest Hills Resident Continues To Dance After Losing Her Sight
by Kim Brown, Central and Mid Queens Editor June 30, 2005
Mana Hashimoto
Mana Hashimoto lost her sight seven years ago, but she didn’t lose her passion for dance or her drive to succeed.
The 33-year-old Forest Hills resident moved to the United States from Japan in 1993 to pursue a career in music and dance. Five years after she arrived, an optic nerve disease left her completely blind.
None of the doctors she visited knew what caused the problem or how to restore her vision. Rather than destroy Hashimoto’s art, not being able to see transformed it.
“I focus more on the internal world now,” she said. “I rely a lot on my imagination, on my true feelings and who I am.”
She uses what she calls “internal images” to create movement, instead of relying exclusively on technique. Since becoming blind, she has also become more focused on the feeling of her body.
Hashimoto has a packed schedule that includes taking care of a 14-month-old daughter, teaching creative movement, performing and touring.
Recently, she performed in a group show in Paris and in August, she will tour in France again. Since losing her sight, Hashimoto has also performed in Manhattan, Philadelphia, Japan and Scotland.
She is also one of the founders of Treaders in the Snow, a New York City dance company.
When Hashimoto came to the United States to study dance, piano and theater she was 21 years old and her sight was already deteriorating.
She studied jazz piano at the Berklee Academy of Music in Boston for five years before moving to New York to study modern dance at the Martha Graham school. She was also enrolled in the dance department at Queens College.
By 1998, she was completely blind, yet she continued to love performing. “Whenever I dance my life is on the stage and people just catch it,” she said. “It’s like communication to me.”
Both on and off the stage, Hashimoto has found life in the United States to be freer, especially for women, than it is in Japan. In her country, where she studied classical dance since she was four years old, the discipline is heavily regimented.
“It’s very different here because I have a feeling that anyone can study dance. It doesn’t matter what age,” she said. “In Japan it’s more strict.”
And while she loves her native country and culture, and still has family there, she added that because she has become so Americanized, it would be very difficult to go back. Here, she has become more open and freer to express herself.
“I’m afraid of going back in a way,” she said. “Things are so different there.”
Unlike many immigrants, who dream of moving to Manhattan, Hashimoto loves the neighborhood feeling of Forest Hills and plans on staying. “I wanted to have the feeling of coming home,” she said. “To me, it’s just the perfect place.”
Still, things aren’t easy. Because she is living here on a visa rather than a green card, she is not entitled to many of the services that are usually available to blind people. Hashimoto is looking for an agency to help her care for her baby.
Although she has stopped playing piano since her daughter was born, she has continued to teach creative movement classes and would like to teach even more.
Creative movement is less focused on technique than other forms of dance and has more emphasis on expressing feelings and images.
People without sight, Hashimoto said, are very imaginative and she would like to help them bring that imagination out. Even people with sight, she added, could benefit from closing their eyes and learning to trust their bodies.
In addition to teaching, Hashimoto wants to continue to earn a living by performing all over the world. “I enjoy sharing with people,” she said. “In performance we share life.”
For more information about Hashimoto’s performance schedules or movement classes call 718-793-7958.

Project to open internet to blind
Accessing the web can be hard for the visually impaired

A three-year project to improve blind access to the internet has started at Queen's University in Belfast.

Researchers at the university are working to devise ways to guide the blind and visually impaired through the web, as part of the Enabled initiative.

The EU has provided 3.8m euro funding for the project which 13 other bodies across Europe are taking part in.

Professor Alan Marshall said blind people's groups would help them to carry out trials in Northern Ireland.

Mr Marshall said researchers from the Virtual Engineering Centre would be joining forces with the Sonic Arts Research Centre to work on the projects.

As well as schemes involving tactile display screens and audio cues, there is also the potential to use mobile devices as audio guides for the blind.

He said by embedding devices in public areas like shopping malls, they could advertise the position of shops when a blind person with an enabled personal data device passed.

Mr Marshall said more people now were going blind later in life or through disease and this type of technology could help keep them out and about.


If the problem of inaccessibility is not solved, the discrepancy, known as the digital divide, will become bigger
Professor Alan Marshall

"When you are outside there is GPS (global positioning system) but this doesn't work inside," he said.

"If you had embedded devices they could advertise what the shop is, by saying 'I'm a butchers' through a mobile device."

He said that they could also act as maps to guide the blind through unfamiliar buildings.

"The internet has a great impact on people's lives," Mr Marshall said.

"Through the web information can be accessed remotely; people can interact with friends and family; services such as online shopping, paying bills and distant learning can be provided to the public.

"However, people with blindness or other form of disability are not able to take full advantage due to the inaccessibility in the technology itself.

"If the problem of inaccessibility is not solved, the discrepancy, known as the digital divide, will become bigger as information technology advances," he said.

Trials will be carried out in Belfast in conjunction with the Blind Centre for Northern Ireland and the Royal National Institute of the Blind which will help organise user focus groups and training and evaluation sessions.

Queen's University is the project leader and is joined in the project by 13 other universities and organisations across Europe, including BT and Siemens.

The Seattle Times
Monday, June 20, 2005
Exhibit encourages blind, sighted to see with their hands
By Jack Broom, Seattle Times staff reporter

"Touching Art," noon-4 p.m. tomorrow-July 2 (Tuesdays through Saturdays), Jacob Lawrence Gallery, School of Art, University of Washington. Presented with the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind. For more information, see www.dsb.wa.gov or call 206-685-1805.
Running her hand along a black roll of fabric, Deng Kong wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
"The first time I put my hand on this one it felt like a person's leg. And then the second time I came over it felt like tree trunks."
Feeling the same material, Mark Adreon was captivated. "It was soft and you wanted to touch it and kind of get into it. ... It's very inviting and warm. ... You do want to curl up on it, actually."
Kong and Adreon have two things in common. They were both on the jury for an art show opening tomorrow at the University of Washington's Jacob Lawrence Gallery. And they are both blind.
You won't find any velvet ropes, warning signs or vigilant docents keeping you away from the artwork at this exhibit. Not only is it OK to touch the pieces, it's encouraged.
Even if you have sight, you might want to slip on a pair of blindfolds provided and run your hands, as Kong and Adreon did, along and into the black polyester-stuffed Lycra rolls and pink round puffs of "Sporadic" by Chad Downard.
Or slide your fingers across the glazed clay "Untitled Head" by Andrea Hull.
Or feel the buzz of small plastic fan blades on "Hive" by Ben Hirschkoff or the 16 cool, smooth faces that make up "Déjà Vu" by Susie Lee.
Those four were judged best of the submissions in "Touching Art," a collection of work by present and former UW art students designed to be appreciated by blind as well as sighted visitors.
The goal is to "put 'blind' and 'art' in the same sentence" and challenge the commonly held notion that art has no role in the lives of the blind, said Adreon, business-relations manager for the state Department of Services for the Blind, which is co-hosting the show with the UW School of Art.
"The empowerment approach here is to sort of de-victimize blind people and say, 'Why not? You can appreciate art. Art should be part of your life,' " said Adreon, 50, who lost his sight eight years ago when an illness damaged his optic nerves.
The UW will show the pieces by a dozen student artists for two weeks. The top four, purchased by the Department of Services for the Blind for $500 apiece, will then be permanently displayed at the agency's headquarters in South Seattle.
The idea for the exhibit stemmed from an observation by a client of the department, who noted that the office features work by blind and low-vision artists, but that those pieces, primarily photographs, can't be appreciated by the blind people who pass by them every day.
Adreon approached the UW School of Art with the idea of having student artists create work to be enjoyed by sighted and blind people.
"Art is part of our culture," Adreon said. "It's part of the historical, cultural expression. And blind people should be and should want to be part of all that."
Timea Tihanyi, who teaches sculpture, helped spread the word among artists. "We saw it as an interesting opportunity and a challenge. For people who do sculpture, working with tactile materials and making artwork that is very physical is an important consideration."
Each submission had to be something that could hang from a wall. The key limitation - taken from the Americans with Disabilities Act - was that the objects could be no more than four inches in depth, so that people walking by would not run into them.
Adreon, who has a long-standing appreciation of art and design, met with the participating artists and urged them not to just make objects that a blind person might identify, but ones that could be more complex and engaging.

"I told them the expression can go beyond, 'Oh, this is a flower.' It can actually say something like, 'This is a tortured flower.' "

An eight-member jury, including three members who are blind, selected the top works last week.

"Hive" is one of the more inventive creations. It's a four-foot-wide bright yellow and orange panel of wood and wax in a honeycomb pattern. Scattered around the piece are 12 round indentations about the diameter of a golf ball. Behind those, small motorized fans are activated by a motion sensor, so a person who touches them feels the slight buzz of the fan's turning blades.

"Untitled Head" is a smooth form of a human face made of clay coated with a liquid-glass glaze. Its creator, graduate student Andrea Hull, 29, said, "I really like the smoothness of the pieces and I hoped they would respond to that."

Hull's work was one of the favorites of Kong, 41, a customer-service representative at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind, which helped sponsor the show. She ran her fingers slowly down the piece, noting the high forehead and high cheekbones, the smooth skin, the detail in the ears and the fact that the lower lip seemed chapped.

Graduate art student Susie Lee, 32, made her piece, "Déjà Vu," a bit of a puzzle. It includes 16 plaster-covered foam faces, projected at different depths and angles. Only the careful observer will note - by touch or sight - that for each face, there's another one exactly like it.

Sighted people who choose to first "view" the objects while wearing blindfolds will gain an insight not just into the artwork but into the way blind people perceive the world around them, said Adreon.

"What happens when you lose one of your senses as an information source is you have to rely on your other senses that much more heavily," he said. "You're going to be forcing your mind to start reading that piece of artwork though your hands. It will take your mind into a place that is going to be way uncomfortable at first but the more a person would get into it ... they'll start feeling things they would have never noticed if they had just looked at the piece of artwork."

The variety of pieces submitted by the UW students, including pieces in fabric, ceramics, metal, wood and other media, appeared to take full opportunity of the possibilities presented, but Adreon said he hopes this show is just a beginning.

"The idea here is to try to create some stimulation for some artists to say, 'I'm going to try that.' And challenge artists to actually develop this into a real art form so that that experience can grow and develop."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

CAPTION: Deng Kong, who is blind, uses her hands to explore Andrea Hull's "Untitled Head," made of clay coated with liquid-glass glaze, at the University of Washington exhibit "Touching Art." ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

AUDIO: Deng Kong on "Untitled Head" (:36, MP3)

CAPTION: Mark Adreon examines the black polyester-stuffed Lycra rolls and pink round puffs of "Sporadic," by Chad Downard. ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

AUDIO: Deng Kong on "Sporadic" (:20, MP3)

AUDIO: Mark Adreon on "Sporadic" (:31, MP3)

CAPTION: Art-show jurors Deng Kong, left, and Mark Adreon. Adreon works for the state Department of Services for the Blind, co-hosting the show.

CAPTION: Deng Kong, a customer-service representative at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind, was on the jury for the "Touching Art" exhibit opening tomorrow at the University of Washington's Jacob Lawrence Gallery.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002340411_blind20.html


DO TOUCH EXHIBIT (New Jersey)

RED BANK: The Art Alliance of Monmouth County will feature a tactile exhibit for the visually impaired and sighted people through June 28 at 33 Monmouth St. A free opening reception will be held 6-8 p.m. today. Call (732) 741-7629.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050601/COMMUNITY/506010367/1065


India Times
Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Film of, by the blind but for all

By PAUL JOHN

VADODRA: Unlike Rani Mukherjee in Black, these actors will not have to act blind.

For in a soon-to-be-produced Gujarati film, the first of its kind in Gollywood, it will be the visually impaired who will produce, act and sing in what is their very "own film".

Papan ni Pehli Paar will feature actors, a scriptwriter, lyricists, singers, music directors, actors and actresses who are visually impaired.

The only exception is the production team - the director, technicians and the cameraman, who have normal vision.

The crew would also consist of the physically handicapped, the mentally retarded and the deaf and mute.

"It is not a typical 'film for the disabled', but a mainstream cinema subtly structured to educate the masses about issues involving the disabled and drive home the message that they do not need anybody's sympathy," says director and screenplay writer Kanti Prajapati.

Shooting for the film, with a Rs 40-lakh budget, will begin in a fortnight.

"Physically disabled actors have been cast deliberately to focus on how they overcome this and perform daily chores other. A character in this movie does not have hands but can cook, paint and write with his legs," adds Prajapati.

An ambitious project by the Bhujbased rehabilitation centre, Navchetan Andh Jan Mandal (NAJM), the film is based on the travails of an educated visually impaired man who finds it hard to get a job.

The film depicts the apathy of the government, especially the social welfare department, towards the disabled and how the three per cent reservation rule, mandatory under the Disability Act, is being openly flouted across the country in government institutions.

The storyline also focuses on the difficulties a visually impaired man faces in his society - the protagonist is up against odds when he falls in love with a girl with normal vision and wishes to marry her.

It also touches on issues like designing disabled-friendly buildings and roads.

The film features dance sequences involving actors who are physically challenged.

"We have avoided professionals. We have talented dancers who are physically handicapped and have been trained. The actors are being chosen from our drama classes who organise street plays and oneacts at regular intervals," says member of NAJM, Salim Vohra.

"The initial part of the film is being shot at our premises to educate the public towards designing a barrier-free environment.

"The child artistes in the films are shown studying in a school which admits both visually impaired and normal kids," says NAJM project co-ordinator Saurabh Sharma.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1128605.cms




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