the wind whistles

Once, a blind girl asked someone who could see: 'What colour is the wind?'

In the book you can find nine poems in Braille by the American poet CACONRAD

together with drawings in Braille

by the Lithuanian jewellery/metal artist BIRUTĖ STULGAITĖ and her drawings of the wind

the Lithuanian artist/sculptor and one of the founders of Draugų vardai ANTANAS GERLIKAS and his Dunes

the Lithuanian artist ŽYGIMANTAS JULIJUS BĖRONTAS, this is harder to describe in a few words, so let’s leave it without words

the American self-taught artist JOSEPH E. YOAKUM, who remembers his journeys in his drawings

Visual art is primarily created for the eyes; only a small percentage of works can be felt or touched by hand. One of the central questions of the project was how art is presented to the blind and how they are introduced to art. Given that the blind are mostly introduced to art from the past (which is necessary, we have no doubt about that), it is also essential for them to be part of contemporary cultural processes.

Furthermore, cultural projects characterized by a certain aesthetic and simplified content prevail; this shapes not only the cultural relationship of blind people with reality, but also the relationship and contact of sighted people with the blind. Through projects of a low cultural level, blind people are not integrated into mainstream society but are deliberately kept at a distance. We do not attempt to educate or present other works of art to the blind, but we strive to create a contemporary work of art in book format that is accessible and suitable for both the blind and the sighted.

This book project will allow both the blind and the sighted to become acquainted with Louis Braille’s system of reading and writing, which was essentially completed in 1824, when Louis was only fifteen years old. Braille’s goal was for this system to bridge the communication gap between the sighted and the blind. This will be a book first for the hands, and then for the eyes; a tool that extends the senses, creating an equitable relationship with the blind—reading on equal terms; a work tailored to this reading material for the hands, not the other way around. Touch greatly assists the eye in acquiring precise knowledge about the object and the correspondence of the image received from it.

initiated and created by Marija Repšytė
from the blind and sighted book series

2026, published by 12:15
funded by the Lithuania Council for Culture
edition of 300
printed by hand by 12:15 (Braille) and Petro ofsetas (offset)
in the envelope 21 pages (variable dimensions from A6 to A3)
ISBN 978-609-96597-0-1