"Blindness at the Museum"
Margaret Shalma
Greetings all,
I hope that you will be able to mark May 24 on your calendar, to attend what promises to be a stunning lecture by the internationally acclaimed author and scholar, Georgina Kleege. As a blind artist with a deep appreciation of visual culture, Kleege's presentation is guaranteed to be memorable and illuminating. Sponsored by Ryerson University's School of Disability Studies in Partnership with the Royal Ontario Museum, this event will include audio and touch tours of the groundbreaking disability history exhibit, "Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember".
Admission is free to all interested members of the public. Event details are as follows:
Saturday, May 24, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., followed by audio/touch tour of Out from Under Exhibit
Eaton Theatre, Royal Ontario Museum
South Entrance, 100 Queen’s Park Circle
ASL interpretation and Real‐Time Captioning provided.
More information about Georgina Kleege is provided below. Please don't hesitate to be in touch personally, if you have any questions related to this event. Please also feel free to circulate this invitation widely -- we hope to impress upon our hosts at the ROM that the rewards of relevant and accessible programming are a receptive and engaged audience!
I hope to see you there!
Catherine Frazee
About Georgina Kleege:
Georgina Kleege has taught creative writing, literature and
disability studies at the University of Oklahoma and Ohio
State University and now teaches English at the University
of California, Berkeley. She is the author of a novel, Home
for the Summer, a collection of personal essays about
blindness, Sight Unseen, and Blind Rage: Letters to Helen
Keller, an epistolary exploration of Keller's life.
A powerful new voice in the domain of visual studies,
Kleege's contributions have engaged audiences at the Tate
Modern in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. In 2005, she helped to organize the "Blind at the
Museum" exhibit and conference at the Berkeley Art
Museum. Artful, distinct and provocative, her work
illuminates and reshapes how we encounter visual culture.
“The task of translating a work of visual art into language may be a daunting one, but
not so daunting that we should throw up our hands in despair. We need to remember
that the people receiving these words also have imagination, knowledge, memory and
curiosity, whether or not they have perfect vision.”
Georgina Kleege
from Dream Museum: Blindness, Language and Visual Art
OUT FROM UNDER: Disability, History & Things to Remember
Royal Ontario Museum, Apr. 17 - Jul. 13
Curated by faculty members from Ryerson University School of Disability Studies, Out from Under: Disability History and Things to Remember is the first exhibit of its kind in Canada to explore Canadian disability history.