What are you touching right now? What touches you?
What does touch mean in a world in which our haptic experience is usually limited to the smoothness of a touchscreen? What levels can touch have in art when touching is prohibited? And what happens when you are suddenly allowed to touch all the works of art in an exhibition?
These questions guided the participants in the BerührungsPunkte (Points of Contact) project. Blind, sighted and visually impaired people developed an exhibition concept that deals with the sense of touch and related facets of touching. Together, they set themselves the task of designing the exhibition as a place of encounter and exchange. A place that should be as inclusive and barrier-free as possible. In this way, the exhibition is intended to give people a space, a say and access to art who would otherwise be excluded due to their age or physical and cultural barriers, while also giving people for whom exhibitions are normally tailored a new perspective on different needs and the experience of art. Inclusion is understood as a premise, not an afterthought; it is the starting point for the exhibition design.
BerührungsPunkte wants to show how we can break down barriers in the art world, dismantle them, and narrate exhibitions in a new or different way by explicitly activating the sense of touch.
