(Working title)
A participatory art project for an auditory-tactile sculpture trail in public-space.
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(Working title)
A participatory art project for an auditory-tactile sculpture trail in public-space.
Auswählen Deutsch/German
Accessibility
Sign Language Translation
Text Only
Easy Language
Privacy Policy
1. Introduction
Through close collaboration with volunteer participants, such as the psychotherapist; Cordula von Brandis-Stiehl, the artist; Silja Korn (www.siljakorn.de), the teacher and muscian; Jens Flach, director of Marburg School of Music; Eugen Anderer, and support of Franz-Josef Breiner, all of whom are blind themselves, a permanent tactile-auditory sculpture trail is being created by Gina Bolle and the participants, in different locations across Marburg.
A permanent tactile-auditory sculpture trail is a fixed pathway featuring sculptures designed to be explored through touch and sound, offering an accessible multisensory experience.
The project seeks to engage differing ways of knowing[1] and perception for blind, visually impaired and sighted people. This is to encounter other realms of resonance, opening up sensory exploration for sighted people, guided by blind or visually impaired individuals’ perspectives. Othered ways of knowing refers to connecting with non-normative epistemologies[2].
The core of this project is to engage access as both a fluid and essential creative practice.
2. Foundation
When Gina Bolle installed an artwork in the public space in Marburg, she was struck by the way in which visually impaired pedestrians were inadvertently obstructed and thus excluded from experiencing the piece. It became apparent to Bolle that there were almost no artworks in the public in Marburg that were produced by or for blind or visually impaired people. This prompted a critical reflection; who is public art for?
Michael Warner’s notions of publics and counter-publics are as self-organised “poetic world making,”[3] however, historic marginalisations of counter-publics diminish “the potential for world making.”[4] Public spaces are not neutral and shaped by norms that often exclude non-normative bodies. ResonantSculptures embraces the idea of the counter-public, disrupting able-bodied assumptions to create richer, more inclusive experiences of being in public space. Access is not a constraint but a creative prompt, grounded in the physical, sensory, and social realities of urban life.
Marburg, an unofficially called “Blindenhauptstadt”, is an adept initial home for this project, also because it is a leader in accessible urban planning with pioneering tactile paving and auditory signals well before the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [5]. However, this is yet to translate into creative expression across the city. ResonantSculptures build on this legacy by introducing an artistic dimension that reimagines public infrastructure as a space for sensory and social connection. With support from Marburg’s Department of Culture, individual persons like Frau Ulrike Schönhagen, the Museumsfreunde e.V. and the Musikschule e.V., the project began to take shape, harnessing a collective approach.
3. Collective Value
The project was shaped by its research-led beginnings, where aforementioned collaborators responded to a foundational questionnaire. The responses rooted ResonantSculptures to everyday encounters and moments that shape public space and its accessibility. This research stage laid the groundwork for the first design responses and conceptual directions, firmly anchoring the project in the lived experiences of navigating snowy tactile paths, missing auditory signals from 10pm, and the intangible architectures features that shape the cityscape. Engaging with these first-hand experiences, reveals what safety and comfort mean in public navigation.
This shared authorship model redefines traditional artist to audience relationships. Instead of presenting finished works to be consumed, the project’s nature fosters co-creation with Bolle acting as facilitator and coordinator. This collaboration ensures that accessibility is not retrofitted but embedded from the outset. When we have “a sharing of sense impressions between blind and non-blind people. It is in this sense that a sharing of senses becomes (poetic) worldmaking.[6]”
4. Research & Development
Fundamentally, ResonantSculptures is a direct challenge to prevailing Western ocularcentrism that neglects the corporeal reality of making and perceiving[7]. As the ‘Blind Gain’ (modelled of the Deaf Gain) is better understood, it becomes a direct call to resist the Le partage of du sensible[8]. Embracing non-normative bodily gains to defy ascribed boundaries of what is sensible or shareable, insisting on multiplicity in perception and thus, revaluing ‘othered’ ways of knowing[9].
ResonantSculptures is also driven forward by Joseph Beuys’ notion of “Soziale Plastik” (”social sculpture”), which recognises everyone’s potential to shape society creatively[10]. Art and public expression should be participatory, social, and spatial process; a “resonant space,” constantly evolving through the contributions of those who move through it.
Central to this project is safety in public space through the lens of feminist ethics of care [11]. It also is heavily inspired by José Muñoz and Ernest Bloch’s notion of utopianism [12] [13]. The work reimagines care beyond a passive gesture and active building towards alternative futures. Care is understood as both a political and material practice, with a method of sculptural making and a mode of engagement with counter-publics. ResonantSculptures invite touch, evoking spatial memory while challenging visual dominance and resisting the erasure of disabled bodies in public discourse. Inspired by the feminist theorists who foreground interdependence and relationality, the sculpture becomes a provisional site that gestures toward to inclusive urban futures.
The work insists that safety is not simply about protection but about belonging, and that public space, when reimagined through care, can hold all bodies in their difference and dignity.
Click here for the bibliography
5. Next Steps
ResonantSculptures the next steps are … Practical Progress and Collective Care. This involves the realisation of tactile-auditory prototypes, testing in situ, and ongoing dialogue with its collaborators and the public. They will critically engage with existing infrastructures while proposing new forms of perception and belonging in public space.
6. Contact Us
- Interested in becoming part of the project?
- Do you have any feedback about the site’s accessibility?
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Accessibility Statement
ResonantSculptures is committed to radical access and ensuring that our digital space is not only functionally accessible but also culturally and linguistically inclusive.
We recognise that sincere access goes beyond basic sensory translation and physical checklists and requires actively challenging systemic exclusion, engaging with diverse ways of experiencing the world, and centering the needs of historically marginalised communities, including visually impaired, deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse individuals.
We also recognise that access is specific to each person with (a) disability/ies, and requires constant reviewing and flexibility. Our accessibility approach seeks to value diverse ways of perceiving, processing, and interacting with art.
Feedback and Continuous Improvement
Accessibility is an ongoing commitment. If you experience any barriers or have suggestions for improving the accessibility of this digital space , we would greatly appreciate it if you contact us through our feedback form - Click Here.
Thank you for being here.