The permanent exhibition «Being Human» at the Wellcome Collection in London, has been praised by the New York Times for its achievements in accessibility for people with disabilities.
Tactile Studio is extremely proud of its participation in this wonderful inclusive project and thanks the museum team for their trust.
Questioning the links between medicine, science and art, the theme is original. The Wellcome Collection has taken this up with its exhibition.
A tactile booklet for the visit
This tactile booklet allows all visitors to touch and understand the exhibition’s key works, but also to find their way around, thanks to maps of the space.
The gallery is divided into four sections: Genetics, Minds and Bodies, Infection and Environmental Breakdown.
It features 50 works of art and objects.
Tactile Studio contributed to this innovative scenography and designed an elegant tactile booklet that presents the works in the collection and provides complete floorplans of the space.
The booklet provides both full tactile transcriptions of the objects to enable the public to see the work in its entirety, and zoom effects on significant details.
That’s the case, for example, in «Refugee Astronaut» by artist Yinka Shonibare, wearing a space suit and carrying everything he possesses on his back. The tactile booklet invites visitors to touch the printed wax fabric on his suit, inspired by traditional Nigerian patterns…
Two works to be touched
Tactile Studio also designed and produced two tactile panels of works that are also at the heart of this collection.
Through his work «Medical Heirlooms», the artist Tamsin Van Essen designed a set of vases with cracked, lumpy or brownish surfaces which suggest health conditions that can be inherited, like acne or osteoporosis.
Tactile Studio reproduced the surface of one of these unique objects to enable a concrete approach to the work for visually-impaired people and others.
Now visitors can run their fingers over this tactile representation of acne-affected skin that is set in clay.
The second tactile work is a structuring and historical element of «Transparent Woman».
Client: Wellcome Collection
Partner: Atelier WAM
