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ISU students explore blindness in poetry project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ISU students explore blindness in poetry project
Pappajohn Sculpture Park serves as inspiration for original works to be read at Des Moines Art Center reception
WHEN: Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 6 to 8 p.m.
WHERE:Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Ave.
Twenty undergraduate students in Iowa Poet Laureate Mary Swander’s poetry class at Iowa State University will present their original poems about blindness and art during a reading and reception at the Des Moines Art Center on Monday, Dec. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m.
As part of a collaboration between the Iowa Department for the Blind, Iowa State University and the Des Moines Art Center, the event is a forum to showcase the students’ exploration of disabilities, poetry and art.
In October, the students traveled from Ames to the Iowa Department for the Blind where they met and interviewed two blind staff members, toured the building, took brief instruction on using a long white cane to maneuver, and donned blind folds so they could experience the world without their sight. They traveled, still blindfolded, to the downtown Pappajohn Sculpture Park and were given docent-led tours during which they were able to touch several of the works with gloved hands. They returned to Ames to translate the experience into original poetry, which will be produced in audio and Braille formats and put into circulation by the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a division of the IDB.
“This project not only allows a student to experience art in a new way, asking them to expand their thinking and their sensory perception,” said Swander, a distinguished faculty member in ISU’s English department. “The poems express ways of interpreting art without having seen it, and this project explores the deeper ideas of art appreciation for all and disability awareness.”
The Dec. 6 reading and reception is free and open to the public. The poems and accompanying tactile representations of several of the sculptures will be on display at the Art Center through early January.
For more information about this event, the Library or the Iowa Department for the Blind and its services for blind and visually impaired Iowans, contact Shoshana Hebshi, communications specialist, at (515) 281-1338 or Shoshana.Hebshi@blind.state.ia.us
