These sculptures aim to bring attention to the Braille writing system for the visually impaired. The printed patterns explore Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale “De smaa grønne” / “The Little Green Ones” (1867) in Danish, English, and Danish Braille. Andersen's fairy tale describes a possible hidden life of Braille dots.
We both printed and embossed the Braille dots to enable both sighted and tactile experiences of Braille. We believe this is the first time that Braille has been printed in a spiral. We created custom software for laying out Braille in an Archimedean spiral (in between the creases), and custom hardware for embossing Braille with a punch tool on the Zünd G-3 CNC cutter. The high precision even enables interpoint Braille with halves of the story embossed on either side of the same sheet of paper.
The pieces were prepared for the Museum for Paper Art / Museum for Papirkunst for an exhibition “Hands on Origami” from October 2023 to September 2024. Thanks also to Rebecca Lin for helpful early development.
Click on an image to enlarge.
[0701] “Aphid Spirals / ⠁⠏⠓⠊⠙⠀⠎⠏⠊⠗⠁⠇⠎” (2023), Mi-Teintes watercolor paper, 12" × 15" × 15" high:
(This one piece is not embossed as it is not meant to be handled.)
[0702] “Hugging Aphid Spirals / ⠓⠥⠛⠛⠊⠝⠛⠀⠁⠏⠓⠊⠙⠀⠎⠏⠊⠗⠁⠇⠎” (2023), Mi-Teintes watercolor paper, 8" × 8" × 10" high:
[0703] “Little Aphid Spiral / ⠇⠊⠞⠞⠇⠑⠀⠁⠇⠏⠓⠊⠙⠀⠎⠏⠊⠗⠁⠇” (2023), Mi-Teintes watercolor paper, 5" × 5" × 7" high:
[0704] “Twisted Aphid Spiral / ⠞⠺⠊⠎⠞⠑⠙⠀⠁⠏⠓⠊⠙⠀⠎⠏⠊⠗⠁⠇” (2023), Mi-Teintes watercolor paper, 7" × 7" × 5" high:
[0705] “Bilingual Aphids I” / [0706] “Bilingual Aphids II”(2023), Mi-Teintes watercolor paper, 5" × 5" × 7" high:
