Disability History Month: Beyond the Visual

UK Disability History Month (which this year runs from 20 November to 20 December) is an annual event to raise awareness about disabled people’s achievements, contributions, rights and their fight for equality now and in the past. The timing, therefore, of the latest (free) exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds could not be better.

Marking the culmination of a pioneering three-year research project, Beyond the Visual (until 19 April 2026) is the UK’s first major sculpture exhibition where blind and partially blind practitioners are central to the curatorial process and make up the majority of the exhibitors.

A collaboration between the Henry Moore Institute, University of the Arts London and Shape Arts, the show is dedicated to challenging the dominance of sight in the making and appreciation of art, and is transforming how museums and galleries engage blind and partially blind visitors. As Aaron McPeake (co-curator of the exhibition and an artist and associate lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts who is registered blind) explains, “Most

exhibitions routinely exclude blind or partially blind people with instructions to not touch the artwork. Beyond the Visual, by contrast, celebrates the work of blind artists and non-blind artists who make multisensory work”.

Featuring a mix of new and older pieces which reframe blindness as difference rather than deficit, not only can every object in the show be touched, but visitors also encounter braille text, audio descriptions, gallery staff and wall text panels clad in bright yellow (high contrast being crucial for partially blind visitors), and textured flooring mats that indicate when artworks are in reach.

The exhibition includes works such as McPeake’s bronze bell sound sculpture installation ‘Rings’, Collin van Uchelen's ‘Project Fire Flower’ (a series of illuminated tactile panels that translate the patterns of light in the artist’s own firework displays into non-visual forms using engraved pathways and audio descriptions) and David Johnson’s playful ‘Nuggets of Embodiment’. The latter comprises 10,000 stone-plaster Digestive biscuits incorporating messages in braille.

Among the works on display in the UK for the first time, key pieces include a new iteration of New Orleans-born Emilie Louise Gossiaux’s ‘Doggirl’ (“an anthropomorphised ceramic sculpture based on the artist’s guide dog and animal companion” that is also discussed in this interview) and Jennifer Justice’s tactile hanging installation ‘Bucket of Rain’ (which you can read about here).

In decentring the visual, exploring new types of (sensory) sculpture, and encouraging active engagement with all the works, the exhibition demonstrates some of the profound ways in which blindness can inform creativity, perception and engagement with art. It invites us all to open ourselves up to seeing in different ways.

If any OCA students manage to visit the exhibition, they are encouraged to share their

comments here.

Recommended reading:

Ken Wilder and Aaron McPeake (eds.) Beyond the Visual: Multisensory Modes of Beholding Art, London: UCL Press, 2025. Available as an open access free download here.

Image Credit:

Artist Carmen Papalia touches Dahlia Firework Tactile Panel, Project Fire Flower, 2021.

Artwork designed by Collin van Uchelen in collaboration with Lianne Zannier. Courtesy the artist and grunt gallery (Vancouver, Canada). Photo: Dennis Ha.