Invisible Exhibition. Could an hour of blindness open your eyes?

Invisible Exhibition-cum-social project

What it is like to be sightless? In total darkness you find your way out only by touch, sounds and scent. ‘Invisible Exhibition’ in the Polish capital Warsaw opens eyes to blindness as blind guides steer visitors round in blacked-out rooms. The hour-long tour offers the opportunity to see how smell, hearing, taste and touch work differently in the invisible world.

“If you join us, you will also be able to understand what life is like without one of the senses that provides us with the most information, to live without your sight. At this exhibition you will be lead by blind or partially sighted people on a journey that will change perception and possibility even in your mind,” says the organizers.

The Invisible Exhibition (“Niewidzialna Wystawa” in Polish) has also section that offers educational games and demonstrates tools the blind use in their daily lives, such as braille.

“The visitors take on the role of the blind,” exhibition curator Malgorzara Szumowska told AFP.

“Thanks to a series of sense-based installations, you experience what it is to live in the dark.” The hour -long tour requires a healthy imagination, as the sighted learn how smell, hearing, taste and touch work differently in this unknown world.

“There are six rooms, all in utter darkness. Each one replicates a scene from daily life: an apartment, a street, a museum, and so on,” said Szumowska.