Invisible map of Wrocław
The first Wrocław guide by blind people

What does a city look like, if you cannot see it? What do the blind people dream of, what is their attitude towards visual arts, and what do you “see” when you see nothing?
The “Invisible Map” project is not necessarily about equal opportunities for the blind. However, it tells a lot about how much we are perceptually and mentally determined by our sense of sight. Are we all the members of a society of spectacle? The guide, prepared during meetings and conversation with blind persons, gives the people addicted to the visual media a chance to experience an exciting intellectual adventure in a completely alien city, even though it is their own.
The goal of the “Invisible Map” project was to create a guide to Wrocław. People participating in this project are either blind or partially blind. Thus, the Invisible Map was created – the first guide where the city is presented by the people who have never seen it with their eyes.
The result of a two year cooperation between Creative Art Centre and the blind residents of Wrocław is a catalogue of 31 places, the choice of which was dictated by non-visual factors. Each of the places was photographed in accordance with a story told by a guide. Arriving at the image that is presented on the photographs was possible due to close cooperation with the blind people. However, the responsibility for what was finally recorded on the negative lies – for obvious reasons – with their author, Karol Krukowski.
Each photography is accompanied by a description (printed and in Braille) explaining the choice of the place and its audio recording.
During the making of the project Maciej Bączyk, its originator and coordinator, recorded over 40 hours of conversations with the blind and partially blind people. Thanks to that, the guide is enriched with an extensive documentation answering such question as what the blind dream about, what is their attitude to images and visual metaphors dominating the language, and to art itself.
The CD attached to the guide contains audio recordings of the photographed places and a file with texts from the book. All the texts from the book will be translated into English and German.

Exhibition: 2007.10.23 – 2007.11.18