Art into Life

Andrew Lidstone of Gordon Road Services, recounts a recent trip to London's Tate Modern and the skill involved in facilitating a practical workshop for people with profound sensory impairments.

When we arrived at The Tate, we were invited to touch various objects from The Tate's resource box, for example a silver cushion, musical hand instruments, tins and cans. We then went up to The Gallery for an official touch tour led by a member of The Tate's staff, who gave an explanation of each exhibit.

We were given white gloves to wear, and to begin with, we were invited to touch 'The Avenger' (1914), a dramatic bronze sculpture by Ernst Barlach. We also had the opportunity to walk upon and feel Carl Andre's famous floor sculpture 'Steel Zinc Plain' (1969). One of our group enjoyed looking at his reflection in the mirror boxes exhibit and had fun making improvised sounds from objects in the resource box.

We finished in grand style at Cy Twombly's 'Quattro Stagioni (A painting in Four Part)'' (1993). It presented an interesting challenge, how can we make a two dimensional painting accessible with words and the visual sense? We were offered different essences to smell, the citrus fruit essence helped depict 'summer', and 'spring' was represented by a flowery essence. Brilliant!

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