Carmen Papalia – Eyes-Closed Blind Field Shuttle, July 12

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Photo courtesy of Jordan Reznick.
Photo courtesy of Jordan Reznick.

Carmen Papalia designs experiences that invite those involved to expand their perceptual mobility and claim access to public and institutional spaces. Often requiring trust and closeness, these engagements disorient the participant and introduce new modes of orientation that allow for perceptual and sensorial discovery. Each walking tour, collaborative performance, public intervention, museum project and art object that Papalia makes is a temporary system of access—a gesture that establishes a moment of radical accessibility.

Papalia’s nonvisual walking tour, Blind Field Shuttle, will be coming to the Rotary Centre for the Arts on July 12 at 9:00AM. The event is an experience in which groups of people can walk with the artist through urban and rural spaces while closing their eyes. Each instance of Blind Field Shuttle is an invitation to explore the possibilities for learning and knowing that come available through the nonvisual senses. Participants line up behind Papalia, link arms and shut their eyes for the entire hour-long experience. After using their nonvisual senses for a prolonged amount of time, participants begin to recognize looking as one of the many ways to engage with and interpret a place.

You can RSVP to Kelowna’s Blind Field Shuttle here!

Blind Field Shuttle has been shown as part of exhibitions at the L.A Craft and Folk Art Museum, the CUE Art Foundation in New York, Pro Arts in Oakland, Gallery Gachet in Vancouver, and as part of engagements at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Elsewhere Museum, the California College of the Arts, the Mellon Tri-College Creative Residency, the Mildred’s Lane Residency and the Open Engagement: Art + Social Practice conference among others.

Co-presented by ARTSCO and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.