Sensory Award for Art Tours

Dunedin Public Art Gallery Visitor Programmes Co-ordinator Lynda Cullen was very pleased to be awarded with a beautiful (and, no doubt, delicious) edible award by Julie Woods from the Otago branch of Blind Citizens. The award, made by Ms Woods, was an acknowledgement of the Gallery's Insightful Tours for the blind and partially sighted.

The edible Braille picture, made using Braille biscuits, reads ‘Dunedin Public Art Gallery Rocks’.

Ms Woods says, “I wanted to acknowledge the Dunedin Public Art Gallery because it’s wonderful to be able to go to a gallery where the message is please DO touch. To have art accessible to blind and visually impaired people is liberating. It opens a whole new world to those of us who can’t see.”

The Insightful Tours are for blind and visually impaired visitors and are scheduled to coincide with the Royal Foundation for the Blind’s Tuesday walking tours, or on a Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes the tour has an interactive element, such as the current Sound Full exhibition, but for others Gallery staff prepare touch samples that reference the artworks on display.

The Dunedin Public Art Gallery staff have designed a variety of additional tours and activities over the past 12 months, with a resulting increase of more than 2,000 participants in visitor programmes.

DPAG Marketing Manager Tim Pollock says, “The city has a superb art collection, and programmes such as the Insightful Tours, along with other of our focus tours, support the notion of art for all.”