S1 Ep1442: Beyond the Visual - Georgina Kleege on Her Closing Keynote Speech

Beyond the Visual, a symposium reflecting on what blindness brings to the experience of art within cultural organisations and beyond was held at Wellcome Collection on Friday and Saturday 21 and 22 October 2022.  

Visually impaired and sighted Speakers at the symposium included artists, creative practitioners, disability activists, historians, researchers and scientists together to not only to talk about inclusion and access to the arts for blind and partially sighted people but also to talk about what blind and partially sighted people can bring to cultural experiences for all.

RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey was there for both days of the symposium catching up with some of the key people behind Beyond the Visual and some of the key speakers too.

In the sixth of Toby’s interviews from the symposium he chats with Georgina Kleege, an American Author and Academic who gave the closing keynote speech of the symposium reflecting on the past 20 years of experiencing art as a blind person.

Georgina has written extensively on experiencing art as a blind person and closed the Beyond the Visual symposium with her keynote presentation titled, Repeating Myself: Reflections, Regrets and Resolutions.

Georgina’s  latest book, More than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art (2018) is concerned with blindness and visual art: how blindness is represented in art, how blindness affects the lives of visual artists, how museums can make visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired.

Georgina told Toby what she will be covering in her keynote presentation, reflecting on many of her experiences of going to museums and galleries as a blind person and how inclusive and accessible  they were for her, what can be done to improve and build on some of the great work which has been done to make art more inclusive and accessible plus what she will take away from the symposium.

For more about the Beyond the Visual Symposium and the network do visit the University of London research web pages via the following website -
https://www.arts.ac.uk/research/stories


(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)