Blindness: A Special View on Things

For disabled people it is often hard to find a job. However, some of them are able to use their handicap occupationally, as for example the German Bernd Kebelmann. When he lost vision and got to know the world from another perspective, he utilized his new experiences and started a unique art project.

01/03/2008

Bernd Kebelmann; © Sibylle
Ostermann

Waitressing in darkness, sensing female breasts to find cancerous ulcer – not every person can do these things, because for this you need special skills. Like blind people do. They do not need light to orient in rooms. They have an enormously trained tactile sense which lets them feel the slightest changes.

Bernd Kebelmann is blind as well. It happened slowly over many years due to an autoimmune disease. So the 60-year old man was prepared to go blind. “Nevertheless, I fell into a big whole when I was officially approved to be blind in 1983”, he remembers. He had to give up his profession as chemist. For this reason he realigned and today he uses his new perspective as a blind person. He organises the art project “Tastwege” (touching ways), an exhibition for people who are able to see. They touch the sculptures in darkness and get to know art from a different view.

Till is professional reorientation it was a long way. First he had to deal with his blindness in self-help groups, his woman and three sons helped him. Then he realised: to get his feet back on the ground he needed a meaningful activity. Then one day he visited an exhibition for blind people where he was allowed to touch everything. This gave him an idea. “I was delighted by the new experience being permitted to touch the sculptures”, says Kebelmann. “In most museums this is forbidden. I got caught by this need.” He started to write poems on his sensory input. Shortly after wards he organised his first own expositions, where lyrics about the sculptures were recited.

Later on he combined the exposition with darkness. This was not a new thing. However, he added one important aspect: the visitors go through the room without being led by anyone. Like blind people would do. He does not only want to reach people with vision loss but people who can see. They often lost a huge part of their sense of touch, which they can recover in his project.

“This surely needs time. You have to find the sculptures at first and then feel them out. You do not spend that much time if you just look at the objects, because your eye notices things at a glance. With your hands you have to feel it bit by bit”, describes Kebelmann, “so you experience everything much more intensively.” On one evening during the weeks of exhibition he lectures his poems with musical accompaniment, which tell how he perceives the sculptures.

“Visitors enjoy touching things and recognizing different materials from metal to stone. And they talk about it.” There are a lot more blind visitors than blind ones, also pupils from art classes. Kebelmann knows one thing pretty well: Without his vision loss he would have never brought this project to life. “I realised that my blindness is a chance. And it provides me a special view on things.”

Natascha Mörs

REHACARE.de

- More on Bernd Kebelmann's project "Tastwege" at: www.tastwege.de