In White Wall, artist Hilda Kozári collaborates with two visually impaired young women, Joeita Gupta and Amanda Wong, to create a multi-sensory installation of Braille graffiti presented within a parallel olfactory experience. Kozári explores cross-sensory perception including the effects of aromatic fragrances upon memory, perception and imagination. Through a collective process of memory exercises, dialogue and exchange, the artist and her collaborators transform thoughts and sometimes emotional messages into an exhibition that explores the culture of the visually impaired.

Panel Discussion:

Saturday, January 12, 4 -5 pm

 Moderator:

Nina Czegledy, Curator

Panelists:

Hilda Kozári, Artist

Joeita Gupta, Collaborator

Anita Moyano, Orientation and Mobility Instructor, Balance

Ellen Anderson, Founder and Director, Creative Spirit Art Centre

Biographies:

Hilda Kozári is a visual artist living in Finland who investigates the effect of the sense of smell on emotions and visual expression. She participated in Moving in Margins exhibition at Vantaa Art Museum which she produced in collaboration with visually impaired students. ln 2006 she integrated her Memo-trip installation into the collection of the Finnish National Gallery, Ateneum. Her new WHITE projects are inspired by the culture of the visually impaired. Kozári’s installation AIR, smell of cities, was exhibited in the Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma’s Senses/Spaces Process exhibition in 2003-04. The piece was included in the touring exhibition SAUMA presented in the USA and will be exhibited at Design Museum, Helsinki. This urban olfactory installation is her most recognized artwork, and is frequently presented in art, design, perfume, life-style blogs and magazines on the Internet.

 Nina Czegledy, media artist, curator and writer, has collaborated on international projects, produced time-based and digital works, and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide. ?What will you do? (for Nuit Blanche) and the Aurora Feast collaborative public art projects were exhibited in 2006-07. She exhibited with the ICOLS group and the Girls&Guns collective. Resonance, the Electromagnetic Bodies Project, Digitized Bodies Virtual Spectacles and the Aurora Projects reflect her art-science-technology interest. She has curated numerous international media art exhibitions and exchange programs. Her academic lectures and conference presentations lead to numerous publications worldwide. Czegledy is a Senior Fellow at KMDI, University of Toronto, Adjunct Associate Professor at Concordia University, Montreal, Honorary Fellow Moholy Nagy University, Budapest and co-chair of the Leonardo Education Forum.

Joeita Gupta is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto pursuing a degree in Women’s Studies.

Amanda Wong is an undergraduate student at York University pursuing a degree in Art.

Anita Moyano is an Orientation and Mobility instructor at Balance for Blind Adults. Her role at Balance is to teach people who are blind or vision impaired to travel safely in their community.

Ellen Anderson is founder and director of Creative Spirit Art Centre which is dedicated to the integration of adult artists with disabilities into the mainstream arts community.

Curatorial essay by Nina Czegledy

 White Wall, a multi-sensory installation, created by artist Hilda Kozári in collaboration with Joeita Gupta and Amanda Wong, both of whom are visually impaired young women, invites us to enter into rarely explored territories of spatial perception, memory and imagination. The installation incorporates olfactory and tactile elements, comprised of Braille graffiti and a variety of fragrances, to provide a poignant experience of our complex relationship to sensory perception.

 Those in a visually privileged world often take for granted the fact that vision provides a dominant source of information. While vision may be considered to provide the most detailed information about significant properties of objects in our environment, recent studies have shown that our perceptual experiences are formed by manifold, complex interactions between sensory modalities. Clinical tests indicate that the senses are not only fundamentally connected but also that our perception of visual, auditory or tactile events can be altered dramatically by information from other senses. Kozári’s White Wall participatory workshops, leading up to the exhibition, are process-based and involve on-site discussions and experience sharing that extend into the installation’s development.

 White Wall explores mental imagery created by the visually impaired participants who use Braille graffiti enhanced with aromatic fragrances as their artistic medium. Mental imagery plays a key role in human consciousness, including information processing, memory, and abstract reasoning.  Issues surrounding mental imaging have a long-standing history.  In ancient cultures it was already realized that one’s memory could be reinforced if objects or actions were visualized. This process was widely used for healing by Native Americans, Hindu yogis and the ancient Greeks. Kosslyn, who has done extensive research in this field, reminds us that Plato postulated that memories carved into the mind (which he likened to pictures carved into a wax tablet) were based on images.

 Louis Braille (1809 – 1852) invented the language of Braille in 1821. The Braille system is based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon’s demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night called “night writing”. Barbier’s system was too complex and was rejected by the military. In 1821 Barbier met Louis Braille, who identified the key failing of the code and modified it by using a cell of 6 raised dots arranged in a grid of two dots horizontally and three dots vertically. This is the Braille system which revolutionized written communication for the blind.

  The language of braille engages our sense of touch. Touching implies intimacy – a sometimes controversial notion in an age when direct contact is increasingly replaced by remote control devices. Clearly, memory and memorized images - deeply ingrained and often subconscious- serve to identify, interpret and supplement perception. These images or mental models also influence the ability to learn and translate learning into action. It is important to note that a specific kind of “translation” is involved in the sensory process. The term “translation” is commonly used for the act of rendering words into another language. In this project however, “translation” is employed to expand the concept into a wider frame of reference and includes both situational “interpretation” and sensorial “transposition” in a broad context.

 While in our everyday experiences we occupy and utilize more and more digital/virtual space, artists such as Kozári choose to consider and work with physical presence. Today most of interactive media relies on technology which has reshaped our experience in everyday life and is reflected in art practice. White Wall considers alternative interactions and alternative technology. The low-tech project structured around the theme of sensory perception, investigates the knowledge of the human body and aids us to develop the “inner eye”. Hilda in this case works through Braille graffiti crafted from tactile fabric, sensually enhanced with fragrances. The white, fabric-based Braille text mounted on a white wall creates an unexpected texture, leaving  ‘traces’ of handprints. The project serves as tangible proof of specific theoretical investigations into human perception and participatory architectures, interactively influencing and subtly stimulating the sensory faculties of participants and visitors alike. Kozári’s White Wall exhibition raises issues of space, time, body involvement, memory, and questions of mediation. The experience of each visitor to the exhibition will engage his or her particular level of cross-sensory awareness.

 In conclusion, sensory awareness including spatial perception relates significantly to social and cultural developments of direct and instantaneous communication. This is of special interest, as space is perceived -beyond our immediate corporeal environment- as an aspect of science, art, culture and commerce. White Wall reminds us that our reality is composed of distinct yet closely linked components. By exploring contemporary metaphors, the artist hopes to derive new insights into the complexities and possibilities of human perception.

  Special thanks to:

 Kathryn Walter / FELT

WARC Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of our members, volunteers and the following sponsors: Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council.