Unveiling the unseen: Tactile Comic

Unveiling the unseen: Tactile Comic

Venice Biennale 2017

 MINV 17

Catalonia was represented at the Venice Biennale by “Unveiling the unseen”, a project by the artist Antoni Abad, curated by Mery Cuesta (Director of MINV) and Roc Parés. One of the dimensions of the project was the challenge of conceiving and creating a tactile comic.

The proposal aimed to explore to what extent the language of comics can be translated into a tactile language, identifying what peculiarities and transformations occur in comic conventions (sequencing, panels, speech bubbles) during this transition. All of this was done in order to define a universal tactile language for sighted people and for people with visual impairments.

The result of this objective is the short comic story shown in the catalogue of “Unveiling the unseen”, a narrative based on the sensations experienced during boat trips through the canals of Venice by blind participants.

This experimental comic was created by the renowned illustrator Max (National Comic Award in Spain, 2007) in collaboration with blind and low-vision people and students from the Elisava Master’s program. Together, they tested which elements of comic language were readable by touch, and these elements ended up forming part of a new, unexplored language within the sensory possibilities of comics.