You won't see any 'Do Not Touch' signs at this exhibition

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You won't see any 'Do Not Touch' signs at this exhibition

Models close their eyes and feel crafts made by people with limited vision at Korea Craft Week 2022's "Touch in the Dark" exhibition. [KOREA CRAFT & DESIGN FOUNDATION]

Models close their eyes and feel crafts made by people with limited vision at Korea Craft Week 2022's "Touch in the Dark" exhibition. [KOREA CRAFT & DESIGN FOUNDATION]

 
For Korea Craft Week 2022, one of the main exhibitions is dedicated to people with limited vision.
 
Korea Craft Week is a 10-day festival that has been hosted annually since 2018, by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Craft & Design Foundation. Hundreds of studios, galleries and art organizations come together to display the works of local craftspeople.
 
It is held nationwide so that anyone, anywhere, can enjoy crafts by participating in events that range from exhibitions and seminars to hands-on programs and marketplaces. This year, over 600 craft studios and galleries are showcasing around 1,400 events, a 37 percent increase from last year’s edition.
 
Since the pandemic, the festival also takes place online. Some of this year's video content includes how to carve a wooden bowl, jewelry making and how to brew kombucha tea, a type of fermented fizzy sweet-and-sour drink popular in Korea.
 
A visitor makes her own celadon cup in one of the programs for Craft Week 2022. [YONHAP]

A visitor makes her own celadon cup in one of the programs for Craft Week 2022. [YONHAP]

 
One of the main events is an exhibition titled “Touch in the Dark” at the Culture Station Seoul 284 in Jung District, central Seoul, which presents crafts made by people who are blind or have limited vision. With the help of 3-D printing technology, their crafts have been recreated to be more sturdy and permanent outputs of their imaginations.
 
The exhibition was created with the help of Another Way of Seeing (a local art education organization that seeks to foster more artists who are blind or have low vision), Daegu Kwangmyung School (a special education school for the blind located in Daegu) and Creative Factory (a startup formed by Kyungpook National University in Daegu).
 
Kang Jae-young, one of the artistic directors of “Touch in the Dark,” said Thursday that she wanted to create an opportunity for people with low vision to understand crafts through their sense of touch. Kang is the CEO of Mangrove Artworks and specializes in curating craft exhibitions.
 
“In the art world, especially when visiting museums and galleries, it’s not common to see special programs that consider people with limited vision,” Kang said. “[Big museums like] the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art have guides written in braille or offer some hands-on experiences for them but we wanted more opportunities to allow these people to come into contact with crafts. Anyone should be able to know how exquisite yet normal crafts can be and truly embrace them in their everyday lives.”
 
An overview of the crafts at "Touch in the Dark" [YONHAP]

An overview of the crafts at "Touch in the Dark" [YONHAP]

 
That’s why earlier this month the teams from Korea Craft Week and Another Way of Seeing visited Daegu Kwangmyung School to run a workshop in which students were able to learn about the beauty of crafts, like how they can make even a simple table setting more aesthetically pleasing.
 
A video documenting the workshop features in the “Touch in the Dark” exhibition. Educators from Another Way of Seeing explain that although the students use cutlery to eat every day, they are usually unaware of their overall shapes because they tend to only focus on the process of eating.
 
In the video, the students are shown making enlarged, bulky versions of cutlery and tableware like spoons, chopsticks and teapots from many different materials including clay and colorful pipe cleaners. 3-D-printed versions of their creations are currently on display at the exhibition.
 
Daegu Kwangmyung School's 2020 yearbook first included audio buttons on the right-hand bottom corner of each student's profile, which play recordings of their thoughts on graduation. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Daegu Kwangmyung School's 2020 yearbook first included audio buttons on the right-hand bottom corner of each student's profile, which play recordings of their thoughts on graduation. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Daegu Kwangmyung School's 2021 yearbook used a wooden frame as opposed to an acrylic one. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Daegu Kwangmyung School's 2021 yearbook used a wooden frame as opposed to an acrylic one. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

 
Daegu Kwangmyung School is no stranger to 3-D printing. It has worked with Creative Factory to create 3-D yearbooks since 2019. The yearbooks feature 3-D portrait busts of the 20-something students that are graduating — from pre-school, elementary, middle and high school — along with each of their names in both Korean and braille on an acrylic frame. 
 
These yearbooks are also on display at the “Touch in the Dark” exhibition. Yearbooks from 2020 have an added bonus — at the bottom right-hand corner of each of the busts is a small button that when pressed, plays a short audio recording of how the student feels about graduating. 
 
“Before 2019, our yearbooks were just the regular 2-D ones with pictures that every other school uses,” Jeong Moon-jun, a special education teacher at the school and the person in charge of the yearbook project, told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “We thought our students should be able to reminisce on their times at our school after they graduate, but if they are unable to see the pictures for themselves, how are they going to do that?”
 
The idea to add voices came after realizing that just feeling the students’ faces was not enough to tell them apart due to the busts being too small. Another change in design was the acrylic frame.
 
“The 2019 and 2020 yearbooks had an acrylic frame, but we realized that it seemed a bit cold and could break easily, so this time [2021] we changed to a wooden one,” Jeong said. “We keep communicating with the Creative Factory team to make sure the quality of the yearbooks improves every year.”
 
Visitors at "Touch in the Dark" exhibition are welcome to feel the yearbooks, shown here, as well as the crafts on display. [YONHAP]

Visitors at "Touch in the Dark" exhibition are welcome to feel the yearbooks, shown here, as well as the crafts on display. [YONHAP]

 
Visitors to the “Touch in the Dark” exhibition are welcome to close their eyes and feel the yearbooks as well as the 3-D crafts made by Daegu Kwangmyung School.
 
“Touch in the Dark” continues until May 29. The Culture Station Seoul 284 is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The exhibition is free to all.
 
For more information about other programs for Korea Craft Week 2022, visit the website. The online exhibition can be found here.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]
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