About the Project
Through collaboration with artists and art appreciators, we’re creating an arts experience that explores how people might engage with the visual arts after a loss of vision. Specifically, we’re creating a small visual arts exhibit that facilitates a more accessible and inclusive engagement with the arts. Eventually, we hope to facilitate many such exhibits in multiple locations around the country (or even the world!). For now, we hope to debut the first of these exhibits in Iowa City in the late fall of 2025.
Here we loosely outline the path to creating our debut exhibit. We invite you to follow along with us as and perhaps even to join us as an artist, an art appreciator, a sponsor, or a community supporter. We wish to thank the Big Field Fund for believing in this project and providing us with the initial funding to get this project off the ground!
Phase 1 (Early Spring 2025)
Like blindness, the exploration of visual arts for the differently visioned comes with many possibilities. In phase 1, we’re seeking co-collaborators of varying visual abilities to join us in brainstorming ways to make an arts exhibit and venue more inviting and inclusive for people all along the visual spectrum.
We are currently seeking artists who are interested in creating works for our exhibit. Artists of all visual abilities are invited to join! If you would like to learn more about co-collaborating with us as an artist, please visit our Collaborate With Us as an Artist page.
We are also currently seeking people with visual impairment who are willing, through a short phone interview, to share if and how they engage with the visual arts and also how they think an arts exhibit might be made more inviting and inclusive. If you would like to learn more about co-collaborating with us as an artist, please visit our Collaborate With Us as a Visually Unique Art Appreciator page.
And we are also seeking local sponsors and community supporters. If you are interested in supporting the Visual Spectrums collaborative arts project as a local business sponsor, please visit our Sponsor page
If you are interested in supporting the Visual Spectrums collaborative arts project as a community supporter as a donator of treasure, talent, or time, please visit our Community Support page
Phase 2 (Late Spring 2025)
In the next phase, our co-collaborators will come together via Zoom to dialogue about what it means to engage with the visual arts as an artist or art appreciator with visual impairment, with the goal of constructing a small visual arts exhibit that facilitates that engagement. By the end of this phase, we’ll have drawn up plans for a visually inclusive exhibit space and created guidelines for the artists creating the works for the exhibit.
Phase 3 (Summer 2025)
Phase 3 will focus on execution. We will locate a public (most likely nontraditional) exhibit venue in Iowa City. We will begin they physical construction of the exhibit space according to the plans devised by the co-collaborators in phase 2. Meanwhile, the artists will complete their pieces for the exhibit. The co-collaborators will check in once a month to guide and consult on the project as it evolves.
The Exhibit (Fall 2025)
Our goal is to have our exhibit completed and ready to open to the public in the fall of 2025. Everyone who participated in the project as well as exhibit visitors will be invited to give feedback on the project experience. This will be our starting point for a new and expanded exhibit should the first prove a success.