upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

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Teresa Jaynes Presents The Moon Reader

Philadelphia artist Teresa Jaynes (WOO '02, '00) presents The Moon Reader, a multimedia installation raised-letter writing system challenging participants' ideas about visual culture, this September and October. 

The Moon Reader is modeled after 19th-century primers in the Michael Zinman Collection of Printing for the Blind at the Library Company of Philadelphia. The multimedia installation invites participants to learn to read Moon, a raised-letter writing system for the blind invented by blind educator William Moon in 1845. The Reader includes two handmade books. One set in Moon Type with embossed illustrations and a translation set in both braille and large print. An audio recording accompanies the pair. The activity----deciphering, translating and finally comprehending----will be a serene act of discovery. The Moon Reader seeks to challenge participants' ideas about visual culture and to expand their understandings of historical and contemporary connotations of sight.

The Moon Reader will create a literal and figurative meeting place where visitors rely on their sense of touch to “read” and interpret ideas about “sight,” in ways that elicit curiosity, humor, and empathy. People are invited to try their hand at deciphering Moon this September. Copies of the book set will be available to the public at three libraries: starting September 4, 2014 at The Library Company of Philadelphia and on September 23 at the McGill Library at Haverford College and the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped with the Free Library of Philadelphia.  The exhibition and its accompanying programming are supported by funds from the Independence Foundation. 

To learn more and to keep updated on this project, check out The Moon Reader Facebook page

 

 

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