Can You Read?

Can you read? is an auto-ethnographic exploration of learning to read as an adult and the remembering of memories of learning to read as a visually impaired child. Braille is a codified writing style where each character is converted into a combination of up to six raised dots. Typically, braille, and other accessible format books are produced cheaply by charities, and misconceptions of blindness mean aesthetics are not considered.

The project has three elements - a braille book, a ‘proof’ copy and a book bag.

The braille book is a carefully crafted concertina braille book, which uses concrete poetry to create a maze-like pattern which guides the reader through the story. Orientation can be difficult when learning braille and it is easy to become lost on a page, so this pattern serves as a functional tool for orientation whilst also creating a considered reading experience. Additionally, hidden within the maze are tactile images, created using braille characters, which reference the pictures in the source book. The book is also concertina, which enables a continuous haptic connection with the page, unlike traditional spiral bound braille books. The book is housed in a hard archive box type case with ribbon ties and coloured braille cover. The source material is ‘A Monster Mistake’ by Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta, part of the Biff, Chip and Kipper book series used to teach reading in the majority of English primary schools. The colours chosen for the box reference the lakeside setting of the story.

The ‘proof’ copy includes the braille, the numeric code of the braille and the text of the book, as well as the text used create the tactile images. The combination of six dots that make up braille have a numeric code relating to which dots are embossed or not, meaning each character has a 1-6 digit long number. Each character of the text is aligned with the start of each digit which creates a jumbled and inconsistent spacing between letters. This mimics the experience of leaning to read by making the reader slow and stilted, confusing words and sounds. It is a small soft-back staple bound booklet, printed on unbleached recycled paper, which inverts the norm by having a cheaply produced and utilitarian text copy and carefully crafted hard back for the braille.

The final element is a khaki green, heavy canvas book bag, which holds the braille book and ‘proof’ copy. This is a reproduction of the book bags used to post books from the now closed Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) Big Book Library. The bag has a large thick strip of Velcro as a fastener, the ripping sound of which is incredibly nostalgic of my experience of reading as a child. On the front of the bag is an Articles for the Blind postage stamp, a type of free postage for books, documents or equipment for use by blind people. The address on the label is the RNIB Library and my childhood address, as a nod to the times when I would receive books in this way.