By Dr. Cheryl Fogle-Hatch
Dr. Cheryl Fogle-Hatch is an independent consultant researching and developing multi-sensory content for museums and other cultural organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of New Mexico and designs and leads hands-on science activities for the National Federation of the Blind.

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The Redefine/ABLE exhibition, designed to create an accessible, inclusive experience, allows visitors to confront their biases about disability, ability and ableism. Although it is now only accessible in digital format due to Covid-19, its original design for two different physical spaces offered visitors an opportunity to explore receiving input through different senses. In this spirit, I am writing to encourage sighted people to confront prohibitions against touch and to consider how such stigmas affect those to whom tactile exploration is essential for information gathering (i.e., people who are blind). This is timely given the development of new cultural norms discouraging touching in the post-Covid-19 era.

I begin this essay by sharing observations of visitor behavior at a tactile art exhibit, “Ways of Seeing,” that ran during the summer of 2019 in Baltimore. Next, I discuss the work of writers who have considered the place of touch in galleries and museums, both historically and in the present. Finally, I conclude with my thoughts on the necessity of rehabilitating the sense of touch to respectability despite the challenges to tactile exploration adopted in response to the coronavirus pandemic. When touch is expected, it will be destigmatized and people who are blind may hope to gain access to museum experiences in an integrated, inclusive setting.

Engaging touch and other senses

Ann Cunningham, an art teacher at the Colorado Center for the Blind, creates tactile art that is also visually appealing. She explains that tactile art is “artwork that can be understood through touch. Even though it might look pretty good, too.” This multi-sensory approach to art informed the exhibition that inspired this essay.

The “Ways of Seeing” exhibition was designed to be accessible to both blind and sighted audiences. Artists were invited to create new work that could be “seen” through all of our five senses: touch, sight, hearing, taste, and smell. For example, art works displayed included tactile paintings made with acrylic on canvas, ceramic sculpture, wood carving, and various works comprised of mixed media. This enabled visitors to engage the art in an uncommon way: through touch. 

I served on the organizing team for this innovative exhibition, and we hoped that everyone would touch the art, regardless of their visual acuity. However, this was not the case. On opening night, most visitors were sighted. I noticed striking differences in their approach to the art when compared to that of sighted children and blind adults. Some sighted adults asked our permission to touch the art. Visitors who were blind, along with sighted children, confidently touched the artwork.

The children enjoyed playing with elements of a free-standing mixed media installation at the center of the gallery. This work, “Exquisite Corpse”, by Cindy Cheng and Del Hardin Hoyle, is a “continuous collage of material textures” that is constructed with many different items including clothing hanging on a rod, two house plants, and an architectural model. The installation responded to the touch of visitors by producing different sound effects. For instance, the plants were wired to synthesizers that triggered on contact. A speaker below the architectural model amplified the sounds of fingers moving over it. Visitors could create louder sounds, audible throughout the gallery, by rolling marbles on the streets of the model or banging the artwork with tuning forks that were placed in slots drilled into the wooden top of the installation.

We had promoted the tactile characteristics of the exhibition at local meetings of the National Federation of the Blind and on social media in the hopes that visitors would know that they could touch the art. I noticed two blind friends who moved purposefully around the gallery exploring the art with their hands and reading the Braille labels posted next to each piece. Their careful and deliberate tactile exploration was a behavior repeated by blind people at other events.

Although I did not ask the blind visitors what they were perceiving, I can explain my own process of interacting with the art. When I first encounter an object, I make a series of rapid observations, classifying its characteristics in binary terms: hard or soft, warm or cold, heavy or light etc. Then, for artwork, I determine if the object is in two or three dimensions, for example, a flat painting or a 3-D sculpture. Then I explore the object more systematically, running my hand across it to find its edges and judge its size. I notice any changes in material or texture or shape. If my time and interest permit, I may ask a sighted friend about its color or other visual characteristics, and that information supplements my mental picture of the work.

Since I had proofread the artists statements prior to the exhibition opening, I knew the material composition and subject matter of each artwork before I touched it. Even so, each piece came to life for me in a very intuitive way. I could imagine the large tree from which a bowl was carved because I noticed the size of the bowl and I felt the alternating rough and smooth textured sections. I found that it was heavier than I had anticipated based on my reading of the description.

Don’t touch!

Some sighted adults were hesitant, and they asked our permission to touch the objects. One said he had to remind himself that touching was okay. When I shared these observations with the organizing team, one member said that this shows “how ingrained not touching art is in our culture, and how difficult it is to change that even when art is created to be touched”.

Unfortunately, our observations about people refraining from touching art are not unique to the visitors to our exhibition. In fact, Cheng and Hardin Hoyle referenced this reluctance in their artist statement for Exquisite Corpse. “We take sight as a given and vision is the access point for the work’s substance. Work is looked at, appreciated from a distance, one’s hands in the pockets or clasped politely in front or behind the body.”

Furthermore, D’Evie and Kleege document a similar reluctance to touch objects in a tactile art exhibit at the KADIST Art Foundation in San Francisco. They described how sighted visitors touched the art as “cursory”, “tentative”, and “imperceptible.”

The perceived cultural prohibition against touching objects 

Constance Classen (2005) has shown that the prohibition against touching objects on display is a relatively recent phenomenon dating to the 19th century. During the 17th and 18th centuries, museum curators encouraged visitors to handle objects because tours of collections were modelled on visits to European historic houses. Invited guests were encouraged to handle objects in these private collections, just as they were expected to eat and drink with their hosts. Most objects were not stored under glass; rather, they were placed in cabinet drawers from which they could be lifted out and examined.

When museums became public institutions, the ability to touch objects on display was restricted. This cultural shift reflected the views of 19th-century European middle and upper classes that associated touch with dirt, germs, and disease (Stallybrass and White 2005:290). Since light was equated with sanitation, the sense of sight was superior and the sense of touch was labeled as primitive.

In this worldview, museums were viewed as having a “civilizing and educational effect on the general public” (Classen 2005:282), objects were to be viewed at a distance. The physical environment of the museum was altered to reflect these beliefs. Large exhibits were placed behind railings, and small objects were put into well-lit display cases.

A restricted tactile environment is ableist

Deborah Kent, a children’s book author who is also blind, laments the lack of opportunities for tactile exploration at modern museums. For her, “a visit to a museum is a series of encounters with velvet ropes, wooden barricades, ever-vigilant security guards, automatic alarm systems, and implacable sheets of glass.” These security measures, meant to protect objects, are simultaneously access barriers for people who are blind.

When everyone is forbidden to touch objects, special arrangements need to be made for tactile access. Usually, access is granted only at pre-determined times when selected museum staff or volunteers are available to offer touch tours allowing visitors “to explore different objects—either real or replicas—through touch” (Braden 2016). Results of a recent survey indicate that some people value touch tours, but others do not seek out these experiences because they do not wish to plan their museum visits weeks in advance.

The traditional museum “touch tour” meets baseline accessibility requirements with its controlled access that segregates visitors based on their visual acuity. Alternatively, an inclusive museum practice would incorporate touchable objects into all exhibits creating inclusive experiences for integrated groups of sighted and blind visitors.

Touch in the time of a pandemic

I wrote a draft of this essay before the coronavirus pandemic. Now, touching anything is considered a risky activity fraught with fears of contamination. For example, Drs. Sam Dooley and Tom Frieden advocate: “Avoid touching commonly touched surfaces or objects with your bare hands, do not touch your face without washing your hands first if they might be contaminated, and wash your hands every time you think you might have touched someone or something that might be contaminated.” 

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hedging their bets about the possibility of spreading Covid-19 by touching objects. Their Frequently Asked Questions page states, “It may be possible that people can get Covid-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

It is not surprising that cultural norms emerging in the Covid-19 era preference information-gathering via the sense of sight instead of the sense of touch because visual examination of objects can occur at a physical distance while tactile exploration requires proximity.

The emerging norms against touching objects are expressed in all aspects of daily life, including museum visits. As of this writing, many museums remain closed, and institutions that are open have restricted public access to hands-on exhibits.

The need to reduce disease transmission is understandable, but some new procedures will disproportionately affect visitors who are blind. For instance, removing hands-on exhibits eliminates the opportunity for blind people to independently explore exhibits. In a touchless museum, our museum experiences would be filtered through the verbal descriptions of sighted companions or museum personnel.

I have had conversations with tactile artists about ways to adapt to new norms in the Covid-19 era. Collectively, we have come up with several solutions that might allow people to safely handle objects in an exhibit: 

– Proper hand hygiene can be encouraged by providing hand sanitizer or wipes in a standard location within the physical exhibit space.

– Disposable gloves may be worn to protect people and objects.

– Materials that are easily clean can be chosen as touchable objects.

– Museum visitors could be provided with tactile handouts that they can touch and then take them when they leave the exhibit.

Implementing our proposed solutions, either singly or together, may reassure people about their safety when touching objects in museum exhibits. We are advocating for these options and other possibilities that allow for tactile access.

In summary, the coronavirus adds a layer of complexity to the perceived cultural prohibition against touching objects. We understand that precautions are necessary to minimize the spread of disease, but we fear that new norms could be implemented in an ableist way. Blind people and our allies will need to increase our efforts to re-shape the post pandemic world in a way that allows us to gather information through the sense of touch. This work is important, not only to ensure tactile access for blind people, but also to safeguard the opportunity for everyone to benefit from multi-sensory experiences.

References

Braden, C. (2016) Welcoming All Visitors: Museums, Accessibility, and Visitors with Disabilities. University of Michigan, Working Papers in Museum Studies: Number 12, Ann Arbor.

Classen, C. (2005). Touch in the Museum, in The Book of Touch, C. Classen ed. PP. 275-286, Berg, New York, NY.

Stallybrass, P. and A. White. (2005) Bourgeois Perception: The Gaze and the Contaminating Touch,” in The Book of Touch, C. Classen ed. PP. 290-292, Berg, New York, NY.