Museum for the blind with copies of classical masterpieces

MUSEUM FOR THE BLIND WITH COPIES OF CLASSICAL MASTERPIECES

The idea is brilliant: to consider blindness, when visiting a museum, no longer a constraint or a handicap, but an opportunity to have a new sensory experience thanks to works of art. Thus was born the Homer Museum, in Ancona, known throughout the world and which has become the most studied case of an exhibition space for the blind.

Those who enter can touch and caress copies of masterpieces from classical antiquity (the Winged Victory of Samothrace or the Venus de Milo), from the Renaissance (Michelangelo's Pietà in resin and marble dust), but also contemporary and modern artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giorgio De Chirico and Arnaldo Pomodoro.

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HOMER MUSEUM ANCONA

The project was realized thanks to the extraordinary energy of Aldo Grassini, 83 years old, blind since he was 6 years old due to the explosion of a war device, and his wife, Daniela Bottegoni, also blind. Over time, the Omero Museum has grown so much that sighted visitors have also arrived, attracted by the idea of ​​being able to touch masterpieces, even though they are still copies. Sighted visitors can tour the Omero Museum's rooms blindfolded, to activate and stimulate their other senses. The Ancora experience has been studied in various international contexts as a model format, to give the blind the opportunity to not feel excluded from the pleasure and enjoyment of art. Hence the collaborations with the Louvre and the Cairo Archaeological Museum. 

The images are taken from the Facebook page of the Omero State Tactile Museum

EXTRAORDINARY STORIES OF THE BLIND:

• Beatrice: Autistic and visually impaired, she draws comics.
• Stefano runs like the wind to avoid resigning himself to the obstacles of blindness.
• At school thanks to his adoptive grandfather. Every morning he accompanies a blind child.