Tactile artwork should be commonplace in UK galleries to make sure art is accessible to blind people, while more needs to be done to counter “ocularcentric bias”, according to the creative team behind a significant new exhibition.
In November, the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will host Beyond the Visual, the first sculpture exhibition curated by and created with the input of blind and partially sighted artists.
The Guardian reported that the curators in charge of the show hope it can encourage leaders in the world of visual arts to make their galleries and spaces accessible to blind visitors and artists by ensuring suitable works can be touched.
Beyond the Visual co-curator Prof Ken Wilder said: “One of our aims of the project is it brings about institutional change. We want to challenge that ocularcentric bias that’s just really embedded within the art world, which means for most sculpture exhibitions, you can’t touch the works.”
The Guardian reported that the exhibition is the culmination of a three-year research programme, which has already resulted in changes at the Henry Moore Institute.
Dr Clare O’Dowd, research curator at the institute, said: “We ask now for tactile objects. If we are working with a living artist, we’ll ask them for objects or materials that we can use on ‘touch tours’ … maybe a maquette or some material that the artists use, so that you can get more of a sense of the object itself.”
Dr Aaron McPeake, a blind artist who co-curated the show and an associate lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts, said changes made by institutions to make them more accessible usually benefited everyone and were known as “blindness gains”.
He said: “You get announcements on buses and trains signalling what the next station is. That was primarily instigated for blind people, but now everyone uses it so they can read their book and still know when the stop’s coming up. Those kind of accessible instruments are used by everyone, and they benefit everyone.”
The Guardian added that Henry Moore’s work featured in Revelation for the Hands at Leeds City Art Gallery, and his work Mother and Child: Arch 1959 is also in Beyond the Visual.
Dr O’Dowd said that tactility was a key part of Moore’s practice. “He always championed touch as a really critically important way of engaging, not just with sculptures in their final form, but engaging with the objects that he’s using to inspire him.
“Everything that was in these workshops: wood, bits of stone, fossils, or bones, all kinds of things, the tactile aspect of those was really critical to his work.”
- Beyond the Visual takes place at Henry Moore Institute from 28 November 2025 to 8 March 2026