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Holon Children's Museum offers exhibit on blindness for sighted people
Photo: Tal Kirschenbaum

In the dark: What you can't see

Special exhibit for seeing people to learn what it’s like to be blind now offers 'Dinner in the Dark'

“Pass the salt please?” I ask fruitlessly. “Anyone seen the salt?”

 

I try again. Silence. (Maybe they don’t hear me?)

 

I feel my way around the table with unsure hands, looking for the salt. In the process I manage to dip my fingers in to a bowl with some kind of cold, sticky mixture in it.

 

Dessert, I note to myself, and continue searching. This time for a napkin.

 

“Who’s got the salt?” I yell.

 

“Not me,” finally a few voices respond with their mouths full. Suddenly I’m not so sure that the dish in front of me actually needs salt. Bread. The easiest thing is just to eat some bread, I think to myself as I shove a piece of cake spread with some sharp tasting icing, which later turned out to be feta cheese).

 

I give up.

 

About blindness

 

Some 85,000 people have visited “Dialogue in the Darkness” during the last year. It’s a project that aims, and succeeds, to give visitors a sense of what a blind person feels like in the world of seeing people.

 

The exhibit was set up in the Holon Children’s Museum with the help of Bezeq, and it was supposed to be open for six months. But because of the incredible success and amount of requests to see it, the exhibit stayed open for another six months. It is now entering its second year.

 

The visitor’s book at the exit from the exhibition show that people from all parts of the country and all walks of life and ages, continue to come and be moved by “Dialogue in the Dark.”

 

Dark meal

 

To mark the year since the exhibition opened, the organizers decided to take it one step further, and invite adventurous visitors to “Dinner in the Dark.” The meal must be reserved ahead of time, and an extra fee is charged.

 

The meal is served at the end of the tour, and, like the exhibition, is experienced in total darkness as well. There are many courses, smells and tastes, as well as colors - but you won’t get to see those - you can only imagine them. But we’ll get to that.

 

In the entrance hall of the exhibition, a fascinating waiting room for those who come early to the exhibition, you’ll see exuberant signs all over the wall saying things like “This is going to be one of the most incredible things you have ever seen - despite and probably because of the fact that you won’t actually see anything.” Or, “you only really start to see things when you’re totally in the dark.”

 

And quotes from the handbook on blindness or "The Little Prince" and other classics on the subject. But all this pales in comparison with the total darkness that envelops the senses just a few moments later when we begin.

 

It’s cold in the dark. Very, very cold. I’m cold because we just started and everything is so different and unfamiliar. I’m also cold because the air-conditioners, like the guides for this project, work hard from morning until night.

 

I think about the sun; how can you not see the sun? I have to stop myself from asking Sarit, our blind guide to the exhibition, if she has ever seen the light of day.

 

Since I can’t see her face, or where she’s looking, much less the expression on her face, it’s difficult to decide what is or isn’t acceptable to ask, and where the line between a pleasant conversation and inappropriateness is drawn.

 

It’s very cold in the dark. We huddle together like a flock of birds and follow Sarit’s voice.

 

“Just as long as she doesn’t stop talking, or move too far away,” I think to myself. All of the other senses sharpen in trying to make up for the loss of sight, but I still manage to bump in to something large and strange. Why didn’t I see it, I ask myself annoyed. And why did they put it in the middle of the way?

 

It’s really dangerous! I steam as I start to feel the object. It’s made of cold steel, long and very narrow, with something soft and leathery in the center…a bicycle! My joy at having figured it out is quickly replaced by remorse.

 

How many times did I leave my bike strewn on the sidewalk for “just a sec” as I ran in to the grocery store or sat down to rest on a bench. It never occurred to me that doing that could lead to a painful, even tragic accident.

 

I continue, but this time less sure-footed. I don’t suffice with the walking stick they handed me at the beginning, but I keep my free hand extended at all times, just in case.

 

It is so cold in the dark, everything radiates a strange, cold feeling. I hear others bumping into bikes, some into other objects. Never a dull moment here. Next to me walks a man who smells good. Behind me a group gathers, excited.

 

“What is it?” I ask. “You must come see this,” an older man’s voice tells me.

 

Seeing the world

 

Similar exhibits are currently being shown in 15 countries around the world. Shows in places like Milan, Hamburg, Tokyo, Mexico City, Montreal and others are all making inroads in knocking down traditional ideas and prejudices about blindness and blind people. A show will soon open in London as well.

 

I heard about this exhibit a while ago, when it first came. It was hard to miss it, with all the hype by community centers and newspapers. I don’t know why I didn’t come sooner. But what got me to come here was the “Dinner in the Dark.”

 

The meal is at the end of the tour (the tour takes about an hour and a half) and it adds another difficult dimension to understanding the world of blindness.

 

It’s made up of several courses that vary, such as stuffed mushrooms, green rice, baby chicken on a bed of hazelnuts and more. Each is laid out side by side, from entrée to dessert, for the diner who can only feel his way, moving closer to the sounds of falling forks and squeaking chairs.

 

The meal takes place in a room without light, of course, but not a room without smells and noises or gravity. Which means that if you drop your cup, it explodes with a loud bang. If someone says “yuck” about a certain dish, everyone hears it, but no one can tell which dish they are referring to.

 

And if you can’t stand the smell of fish, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. Because when your eyesight doesn’t work, the other senses are all in a riot to make up for it.

 

It’s hard to describe the experience of that shared meal. Knowing you can’t see and are not seen means all the rules of social engagement change. Like my neighbor who “borrowed” my fork and part of my dessert. You eat with your mouth open and even with your hands - after all, your neighbor’s got your fork.

 

The repast is interesting, sometimes tasty, but most of the time a mental and physical drain. I think it’s most appropriate for anyone who has already been to the main exhibition and would like to deepen the experience, or for those visitors who would like to test all of their senses in one evening, and of course, those with a hardy gastrointestinal system.

 

If you belong to one of those groups, or are not among the thousands who have already visited the show, I recommend it. In fact, I urge you to take time out from your daily, familiar routine to try this. You’ll come out of “Dialogue in the Dark” with a new way of looking at things, literally.

 

Details

  • Dialogue in the Dark: Tours start every 15 minutes and are for adults and children 9 years and up.
  • Hours: Sun-Thurs 9 a.m.- 9 p.m., Friday and holiday eves until 2:30 p.m., Saturdays and holidays from 10 a.m.- 9 p.m.
  • Price: NIS 45 (USD 10) per ticket
  • Dinner in the Dark: Thursday evenings, at the end of the “Dialogue in the Dark” visit.
  • Reservations must be made in advance (+972.3.650.3005) and the tours are in groups of 20.
  • Tour and Dinner together cost NIS 180
  • Dialogue in the Dark at the Holon Children’s Museum, 1 Mifratz Shlomo St., Peres Park, Holon
  • T: +972.3.650.3000

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.31.05, 16:00
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