Untitled - Narodowe Centrum Kultury

104
Outside
Inside
Outside Inside is a project
run by Gdańsk’s Łaźnia
Centre for Contemporary
Art in partnership with
the Occupational Therapy
Workshop at the Deaf-Blind
Aid Society. A 5-month series
of workshops and lectures is
combined with visits to the
current exhibitions at Łaźnia
Centre for Contemporary
Art and other art galleries
in Gdańsk. The project is
aimed at blind and visually
impaired people who engage
with various forms of
contemporary art.
t
he idea to hold offbeat art
workshops for blind people,
combined with visits to art exhibitions,
came from the desire to break stereotypes.
From the outset, we aimed to integrate
the target group with their human
environment from which they are normally
excluded. Artistic dialogue between sighted
people (outside) and blind ones (inside) provided
an opportunity to meet each other and
break the psychological barriers between the
two worlds.
the project
Outside Inside is a series of meetings in
which participants can engage with art presented
in Gdańsk galleries. By engaging with
the cultural and artistic life (exhibitions, film
screenings, concerts) of the sighted, the
blind can better identify with the local community.
All actions are directed outside in
order to overcome the fear of an unknown
world also in us, the sighted.
Another meeting point is provided
by workshops with acclaimed artists: first
year (2008) – a workshop led by blind sculptor
Waldemar Cichoń from Elbląg; second
year (2009) – theatre and vocal workshops
with Gdańsk’s Amareya Theatre; third year
(2010) – sound workshops with Krzysztof
Topolski aka Arszyn from Gdańsk; fourth
year (2011) – video art workshops with Julia
Kurek from Gdańsk.
Each workshop concludes several
months of activities intended to reach the
outside world.
In the first year participants tried
their hand at various art forms from clay
sculpture to photography. Photos taken
during the workshop are on permanent display
at the Employment Office in Gdańsk.
Our next project featured Amareya Theatre.
For five months participants rediscovered
movement, touch and their own
voices. The work resulted in a performance
given in a Tesco megastore in Gdańsk,
where the two worlds – the outside and
the inside one – clashed. In the workshops
with Krzysztof Topolski, participants created
(exteriorised) sounds buried deep inside
them. The result was the CD Orkiestra. Toward
the end of the workshops, an exhibition
was staged in the Black Room of the
Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art. It included
a dark maze where visitors could listen
to the CD. It also contained a number of
Braille works that had to be found by touch.
Orkiestra is available free of charge from
the Education Department of the Łaźnia
Centre for Contemporary Art.
In the fourth instalment of Outside Inside,
participants, despite their impaired vision,
tackled video art. Under the guidance
of young artist Julia Kurek, they shot and
edited a movie presenting their broadly understood
portraits. This experiment of sorts
proved that barriers only exist in our minds.
In November 2011, the film was screened at
the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art in
Gdańsk.