Digital Humanities, Material Culture, and Disability: Designing a Tactile Exhibition

David Weimer, considers how we represent, preserve, and make this nineteenth-century disability history accessible today. We write the stories of people and objects; we publish images of the documents that museums, libraries,... [ view full abstract ]

David Weimer, considers how we represent, preserve, and make this nineteenth-century disability history accessible today. We write the stories of people and objects; we publish images of the documents that museums, libraries, and individuals have preserved; we piece together evidence from what has been lost or never fully recorded. Museums, libraries, and archives have particularly prioritized scanning and publishing images to preserve and disseminate materials. But how can this technology better accommodate the history of blindness? Even though institutions like Perkins scan and publish images of their materials, these materials were designed for tactile experiences that are all but impossible even for the few who are able to access them in person. Weimer offers one solution: with Altschuler, he has designed a multi-site, multisensory, innovative 3D printed exhibition on the history of blind education in the US that foregrounds the tactile experience of the objects produced at Perkins. “Accessible Print: Universal Design and Early Technology for the Blind” aims to immerse people in the issues surrounding access and disability, using 3D printing to introduce exhibit-goers across the country to early print technologies for the blind. Because these objects were designed to be read by both blind and sighted individuals, these nineteenth-century tactile forms provoke new ways of thinking about accessibility. Detailing these nineteenth-century objects and his team’s efforts to reproduce them using 3D printing, he discusses the opportunities and difficulties of designing tactile exhibitions, suggesting the limitations of a digital preservation and dissemination predicated largely on visual media.