Make art more accessible to disabled people?

Try DiDIY then!

Make art more accessible to disabled people? /img/caravaggio-1.jpg

Back in 2016, I congratulated Monza Makers on behalf of the DiDIY Project, for a great demonstration of some very important points of our research on DiDIY in both Creative Society and Education. In a nutshell, these makers:

  • created a 3D printed version of Caravaggio’s painting “Flagellation of Christ”
  • explained very well why and how the painting style of Caravaggio seems made to order to create tridimensional versions of each painting, and be accessible to blind people:

“Caravaggio plays with light and shadows in such a ways that bodies seem to jump out of the painting. But thanks to 3D printing, they really do that”

The result is this Caravaggio exhibit:

Make art more accessible to disabled people? /img/caravaggio-2.small.jpg

More art, from and for more people

This Caravaggio exhibit and itst story prove that:

  • DiDIY (Digital DIY) doesn’t just give more people the opportunities to be artists (e.g. by giving the possibility to create scupltures even to who, for whatever reason, may never sculpt physically, with her own hands). It also gives more people, be they blind, or unable to travel, more opportunities to enjoy more art
  • With DiDIY, there is no need of full time professionals or big budgets to make this happen. Even homeschooling parents, or schools in rural areas, may give their disabled pupils the same possibilities, by asking the closest fablab to make a copy of the same 3D prints shown in that article
  • DiDIY may help teachers to teach difficult concepts, even to pupils who may be “unreachable” with traditional methods

Students only interested in technology would “absorb” the reasons why Caravaggio’s painting style produces 3D prints perfectly usable by blind people very well, without even realizing it, while printing their own copies. But this is equivalent to say that DiDIY is a great complementary tool to make even “difficult students” learn, understand and love art!

To see what we of the DiDIY (Digital DIY) Project found out and proposed, start from the links below. Then, contact me to know more, get in touch with team members and discover what some of us are still doing in the same space!