How many times have you been tempted to touch the artwork at museums? The Dallas Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art have co-organized, speechless: different by design, an exhibition that merges research, aesthetics, and innovative new design to explore the vast spectrum of sensory experiences and new approaches to accessibility and modes of communication in the museum setting. The exhibition gives museum-goers the chance to experience art in a way that invokes most of the senses—you will not be allowed to eat the artwork, however.
speechless: different by design debuts new work by six leading and emerging international designers and design teams—Ini Archibong, Matt Checkowski, Misha Kahn, Steven and William Ladd, Laurie Haycock Makela, and Yuri Suzuki—whose projects were informed by conversations with specialists from prominent academic and medical institutions. Their site-specific installations and new commissions create participatory environments and distinct situations in which senses merge or are substituted for one another.
Harnessing the power and impact of design, speechless: different by design offers audiences unconventional multi-sensory experiences that foster understanding of the varied ways in which we experience the world through our senses. The exhibition presents opportunities for new modes of communicating ideas beyond speech and words. Organized in six major sections, the exhibition devotes distinct spaces to each designer or design team. Four of the spaces feature new installations that fuse multiple sensory experiences—for instance, rendering sound visible or language tactile. Two dedicated spaces gives the visitor insight into the creative process, designed by California-born, Switzerland-based multi-disciplinary designer Ini Archibong, explores non-traditional ways of experiencing sound. The space occupied by Archibong’s work is infused with a soothing, harmonious soundscape created by a custom synthesizer, which removes discordant sound and produces pure sound waves. The installation offers an array of interactive elements designed to illustrate sound through movement, shape, light, and color. These include a pool with an obelisk that visitors can rotate to tune the sound to various bass tones, thereby changing the shape and movement of the water, and brass pedestals holding handblown glass shapes that pivot to initiate shifts in light and color. Visitors can turn every element throughout the room to communally alter the sound in the space.
Curated by Sarah Schleuning, The Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design and Interim Chief Curator at the DMA, speechless: different by design will open at the DMA on November 10 and remains on view through March 22, 2020. The exhibition is presented in Dallas by Texas Instruments. The High will present the exhibition in Atlanta from April 25 through September 6, 2020.
“This exhibition is about blurring the boundaries between senses, media, disciplines, and environments to encourage visitors to interact and communicate through design,” said Schleuning. “speechless: different by design is about what makes us as individuals unique—the challenges we experience through ourselves and others—ultimately defining the interconnections among all of us. Our perceptions, experiences, and differences should unite us instead of divide us, heightening our understandings and creating a greater sense of empathy in ourselves and our community.”
Brooklyn-based designer and artist Misha Kahn created *(T3)* (8)* (J~) * ([..”) * (7^) * (4=) *(F]) * (llii.) * (A) * (!s) * (11) * (‘.v:’)*, a billowing garden of globular silken spider sacs composed of vibrant, dynamic inflatables that moves in multiple ways, inflating and deflating over the course of each day. Visitors can touch, sit, squeeze, and otherwise interact with the inflatable forms, both observing the landscape change around them and themselves participating in the alteration.
“The DMA is committed to offering our audiences opportunities for discovery and for learning about different perspectives and cultures through our exhibitions and collections, and the intersections between them,” said Agustín Arteaga, the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director. “In line with this approach, Sarah’s work on this groundbreaking project—involving years of cross-disciplinary study and collaboration with designers, scholars, and scientists at the forefront of innovation in art and accessibility—is truly pioneering within our field and creates an incredible opportunity to provide a truly distinct museum experience to our audiences. We are pleased to partner with the High in presenting speechless: different by design, an exhibition that creates meaningful experiences for visitors of all backgrounds and abilities, and also contributes important scholarship and insight about how museums can innovate with everything from installation to the visitor experience.”
Scroll Space, presented by New York–based brothers and artists Steven and William Ladd, is a vibrant and tactile room created entirely of tens of thousands of hand-rolled textile “scrolls.” These scrolls were made in collaboration with 1,700 community members in Dallas and Atlanta through the Ladd Brothers’ community engagement program Scrollathon®, which brings the arts to underserved populations through hands-on creative workshops. The Dallas program includes participants from the Center for BrainHealth and the Callier Center for Communication Disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Sound of the Earth Chapter 2, a sound installation by London-based sound artist and designer Yuri Suzuki, integrates audio crowdsourced from around the world. The work takes the form of a spherical sculpture with which visitors can interact by placing their ears against the surface. Each spot on the sphere represents a different area of the world and “whispers” back a corresponding sound sourced from that region, enabling visitors to experience the globe in a fresh way, beyond text and words.
The exhibition’s graphic identity and corresponding publication speechless: different by design is created by Laurie Haycock Makela, a leader in the field of experimental, transdisciplinary graphic design. Playing with the multiple meanings of the word “speechless,” the publication, releasing in January, will explore the evolution of the project, document the installations, and feature conversations between the designers and the curator. In the sensory de-escalation area central in the exhibition space, Makela’s work is displayed on the walls and available for audiences to read. Both innovative and accessible, her work contributes to the foundation of total inclusive and interactive experience of the project.
Glyph, Matt Checkowski. Photo by John Smith
Glyph, by designer and filmmaker Matt Checkowski, explores the creative process and the role of empathy in the creation of each designer’s work in speechless: different by design through a series of conversations between them. The interviews are translated from voice to images pulled live from the web.