Inter-Action MK has worked with BAB (Buckinghamshire Association for Blind & Partially Sighted People) for over 5 years. In 2006, Inter-Action MK invited Zoë Partington-Sollinger to work with BAB on developing a new project. The BAB group wanted to use their interest in art to start to address some of the issues they face as blind and visually impaired people. Shopping, public transport and visiting galleries were top of the group’s list of things to address. They decided to commission four artists to work with them to explore creative solutions to access issues. 

The artists they commissioned were Sara Heitlinger, Alison Jones & Paul McCann, Chris Keenan and James O’Hanlon.

Sara introduced the group she worked with to binaural audio equipment. With this they were able to make recordings that, when played back through headphones, give the effect of the sounds coming from different directions. Sara’s work for the exhibition included a recorded message from the future praising developments in accessible public transport systems. Sara also produced an audio trail that took visitors from the shopping centre to the bus stop, highlighting the obstacles a visually impaired person would encounter on their way.

James worked with the group to produce two giant  banners which were hung from the ceiling in the shopping centre atrium. The banners formed part of a campaign for better colour contrast and were pastiches of the colour charts that are produced by paint companies. The group worked with James to rename the colours to reflect how they felt about the colours – giving them new names such as fish tank green and urban pigeon.

When Chris Keenan first me the BAB members it was on a busy Saturday afternoon at Midsummer Place shopping centre. A key phrase that came out whilst walking through the space was ‘Noise Is A Blind Man's Fog’. The reverberation of the noises made by people travelling through the shopping centre created a confusing cacophony of sounds creating a sort of fog for the group. To illustrate this, Chris and the group decided to film the shopping centre whilst empty, recreating the confusing sounds and using fog and smoke to represent the confusion.

Alison and Paul interviewed project participants, asking for opinions on Midsummer Place shopping centre informed by a multi-sensory perspective. From the interviews Alison and Paul edited together sound bites of past personal thoughts and responses. The finished audio piece was fed intermittently through the tanoy-system at Midsummer Place, converging the visitors present, real-time, experience with the audio-narrative of past memories and experiences of the mall.

These projects were exhibited at Midsummer Place Shopping Centre 17 –23 September 2007. The Ways of Seeing conference took place at Jury’s Inn, Milton Keynes, on 17 September. At the conference the artists and the participants talked about their experiences of the project. Delegates also attended workshops with the artists.

Following on from the art commissions, the Ways of Seeing steering group commissioned film maker Sean Walsh to create a film that would bring together the issues and ideas that had emerged through the project. The film, See it Our Way, was launched on 31 July 2008 and highlights some simple solutions that retail managers could put in place to make shopping a more accessible and enjoyable experience for visually impaired people.

If you would like a copy of the film email info@interactionmk.org.uk