As gallery goers, we have been conditioned to behave when we enter a room with art. We are quiet. We look intently, and most importantly, we never touch. We know we are required to understand an artwork, its textures, its intent, and its sensations by looking and reading, and occasionally, listening.
sensorial challenges our preconceptions by inviting us into soothing, immersive and playful scenarios where we can engage with more than just our eyes, and immerse ourselves, as much or as little as we wish to. As a gallery worker, it was a challenge for me to be more physically inquisitive. My work consists of asking people not to touch, which is the opposite of sensorial .
Produced by, and for, the neurodivergent community, sensorial embraces neurodivergence, ability, and disability. Each artwork is deeply personal, reflecting the interests, practices and needs of the artist or group who produced it. sensorial offers a bespoke gallery experience rather than a one size fits all conditioned experience of artworks and art spaces. For instance, HUG by multidisciplinary artist Hannah Surtees, is made of upcycled clothing worn by her son as a child. The first time I saw HUG , I walked past, hesitant to physically engage with it. Still intrigued, I found myself returning – this time sitting on the floor in front of HUG and poking at its lumps, feeling the different textures. Finally, after working up my courage, I sat down and wrapped both my arms around the work. The embrace began as stiff and awkward, but I could not resist the work’s irresistible energy, gradually relaxing into the physicality of the textiles.
Bailee Lobb’s artwork Ahuriri is also a kind of full body embrace – an inflatable structure hand-dyed to mimic the colours of sunrises in Aotearoa where the artist lives and works. Lobb’s practice examines her experience of disability as an autistic woman. Ahuriri is not simply an artwork. For the artist, it’s about creating a safe space for self-soothing and sensory processing. Lobb invites us to not only touch Ahuriri , but to enter it. As you unzip and crawl into the artwork, the textile begins to deflate on you. The soft sinking of Lobb’s work reminded me of the way my mother would lift and slowly drop silk scarves over me as I lay in bed as a child, and of playing under blankets and sheets, making cubby houses in imaginary worlds. Lobb said being inside the artwork was like “having a bath in that colour” and there is no better way to describe the sensation. The inside is pure colour, and even with your eyes closed you can feel yourself being bathed in light.
Ahuriri does not require physical engagement but experiencing it from within makes you part of the artwork. From outside, you can still hear the hum of the fan inflating the textiles, touch the soft material and feel the seams which create an edgeless space without walls or corners. Even if you choose to unzip the work without entering it, you witness the depth of the colour within and the soft collapse of the textile as it deflates when it is opened and reinflates as it is rezipped. sensorial’s artworks offer engagement on every sensory level.
sensorial is participatory, communal, emotional, sensory and tactile. Unlike traditional observational artworks, you can literally feel the artist at work. Both serious and playful, sensorial invites you to engage and discover something new.
Rose Hannan (she/her)
LIAM BENSON Hello, Good to Meet You (detail) 2019. Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for the Jackson Bella Room, 2019. Photos by Jaimi Joy, Courtesy the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition curated by Rilka Oakley Copyright © Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, the author and the artist 2023. This exhibition is supported by the Dobell Exhibition Grant, funded by the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation and managed by Museums & Galleries of NSW.