Abstract
Numerous museums and galleries now offer tactile opportunities as part of their access provision. This article asks why touch is deemed to be more accessible than vision as a way of learning about art and what repercussions that has for blind and visually impaired audiences. While touch has been discussed in many different contexts, touch also has a specifically art historical lineage where it is characterized in predominantly pejorative terms. This then raises serious questions concerning the use of touch within contemporary access provision: is touch used in access provision because it is considered to be more basic, easier than seeing? Does touch remain an adjunct to vision, a lesser, substitutive form of seeing? Alternatively, are art historical stereotypes so outdated that they are irrelevant for current museum practice? In which case does access provision show touch to be a qualitatively different route to knowledge? And, if this is not the case, how can we start to construct a model of touch that interlinks with vision without being subsumed by it, where touch concerns thought as well as feeling?
Published Version
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