Visual artist Sarah Ruttle‘s Research and Development project Blossoming Beyond the Darkness features as part of this year’s Bealtaine Exhibition at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre. The work follows on from Sarah’s 2023 Research project, Beyond the Darkness.
Over the last two years, Sarah’s research has explored new creative approaches for working with people with visual impairments. After studying the benefits and uses of e-textiles and smart textiles, Sarah focused on creating interactive, sensory textile resources. These were a musical house apron, a jewellery box, and a folding blanket. To include an audio element, she sourced sound pieces from an inclusive technology supplier. Together with Arts for Health musician Kate Liddell, Sarah added recordings to the sound pieces. These were then incorporated into the textile resources.
Sarah brought the textile works into Schull Community Hospital and St. Joseph’s Unit in Bantry General Hospital for participants to use and explore.
Read an in-depth account of Sarah’s research on the Blossoming Beyond the Darkness project page.
Call into Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre to see this project, as well as beautiful work created by Arts for Health participants over the last year. The Bealtaine exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4:45pm for the month of May.