by Maz Serena Rockers (
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I love writing, art, music, food, finance, hanging out with my favourites & being a productive night owl.
cBraille, a lighting exhibition for the blind opened just outside of the customs house on the 17th of September. Open until the 6th of October, this exhibition is free and aims to raise awareness about the importance of light for the vision-impaired.
Research has shown that about 90% of people who are vision-impaired can actually see light. The idea of cBraille is to attempt to change the signs of the public sphere into ones which can assist as many people as possible, including the 90% who are vision-impaired but can see light.
This exhibition intends to travel around all of Australia through 2014. It is quite small and fairly quick to view, but definitely worth seeing. I'd likely plan a day in the city and have this as one of the various destinations around Circular Quay. Perhaps catching a ferry around the harbour, visiting the Customs House and lazing at a nearby cafe are a good combination of activities to conduct on the day that you visit cBraille.
As someone who has actually seen this exhibition, the darkness of the rooms coupled with the braille within really made me think about how valuable my vision is and how valuable light really is. I tried to put myself into the shoes of someone who is blind by closing my eyes and the light really did make a difference. I felt guilty that the vision-impaired couldn't enjoy the visual beauty of the exhibition, which featured pretty lit-up signage in braille.
This exhibition could be very educational for children, who could learn about braille for the same reason as they might learn about sign language. If you're out with kids and are interested in taking them, don't worry - there probably won't be a need for much convincing. The appearance of the exhibition itself is mysterious enough to spark the curiosity of surrounding adults.
