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This LABORATORY fosters expansive processes from artistic education regarding creative exploration in people with low vision and blindness—and without blindness—that are interested in exploring the visual arts, taking as points of departure questions such as: “what is an image?” and “what happens with a tactile, sonorous and haptic image?” Against this background, we propose a laboratory focused on doing, on learning by doing between people with blindness, low vision, and no blindness, seeking to add to the construction of a society that knows how to share in diversity. Thus, this educational space can be seen as a place to experiment and learn artistic techniques regarding images.

Therefore, we cite Dana Albicker in her essay "En defensa de la ceguera y la construcción de la visualidad" [In Defense of Blindness and the Construction of Visuality], as she explains the experience of an invisible laboratory where I was able to collaborate as a facilitator: “The research conducted in and through the laboratory uses artistic procedures to give account of experiential practices in which different subjects are involved. Crucial to these practices is the existence of collaborations between blindness, low vision and no blindness. This collaboration not only opens the possibility of interpretation and dialogues, but also augments it. It is during this process of diverse collectivity that certain ruptures are created, making it possible to navigate through approaches to concepts that are constantly being posed, such as: the expanded image, sensory images, “how to think about an image without a visual anchor?” and “what is the perspective from a place of not-seeing?” (...) synthesizing in thus way the objective that is set out, where artistic procedures give account of personal practices and of the creation of exercises that probe into the universal accessibility to them.”

We will work with a participatory methodology centered on the act of deep listening and the co-designing of each of the work/learning sessions, where artistic references and exercises will be shared. We will use this approach in order to explore the different notions of perception that exist among the participants, emphasizing that visual diversity is also a capacity. This will give way to artistic creation in blind, low vision, or non-blind adults. It is important that we tap into the autobiographical, into the experience surrounding blindness past a medical diagnosis; that is, we are looking for the personal and political dimension held within people with blindness or low vision, and what non-blind people observe in this dimension. The end goal is to generate a dialogue among subjectivities associated with specific local or global contexts.

Audience: Adults with low vision and blindness that have an artistic practice in the visual or audiovisual fields; people without blindness interested in haptic art, audio descriptions, and the construction of images beyond the eyes.