UWE Bristol, School of Creative Arts,
Department of Art and Design
'Touch'
Julie Barratt
24th October - 24th November 2007
‘Touch’ - A series of artists’ books by Australian printmaker/artist book maker and recent graduate from Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia, Julie Barratt.
This series of books were constructed over the course of a year at Southern Cross University. The artist statement that accompanies this body of work reads:
Who am I to make work about blindness when I can see?
This quandary led to an investigation into a realm, a place called touch, where I have always been, but rarely noticed.
My hands have become my eyes, as my fingers read the stories woven into the tangled threads.
Artists’ books incorporating collograph, screen printing, etching and embossing, taking as its central theme notions of “ways of seeing”, especially our apprehension of the world through the sense of touch were my objective. I wanted my books to embody the idea of handling and touch and to be accessible to as many people as possible.
At the beginning of my 3rd year I was very lucky to meet a inspirational student on campus who had recently completed an environmental science degree, who agreed to help me with my research for the books. This student was blind and had been almost since birth.
My assumptions about blindness and my exposure to the extraordinariness of blindness were the key outcomes of my collaboration with this student. In turn my experience of working with an unsighted person has shattered my ‘sighted bias’ and has revealed something of the mysteries that lie at the heart of sight. It has opened my eyes!
I want my books to be appreciated by as many members of the community as possible, the blind and vision impaired will apprehend the work in their own enhanced ways.
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