Join us for an afternoon of conversation, sound and spontaneous public art-making, centred around Can Touch This – a tactile installation designed with and for the blind and visually impaired (BVI) community.
Artist Shan Michaels (QLD) will speak about her lived experience and the collaborative process behind Can Touch This, developed with South Australian textile artists and the BVI community. Composer Antony Abbracciavento (SA) will share his approach to tactile wayfinding and composing as a vision-impaired sound artist and play excerpts from his compositions. ACE Artistic Director Danni Zuvela will reflect on the history of “devisualising” the gallery – moving beyond sight as the dominant way to experience art.
We’ll conclude the day with a collective “braille bombing” session – adding playful braille labels around ACE (and possibly beyond) to share the braille love.
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Date: Saturday 03 May
Time: 3–6pm
Where: ACE, Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide (Kaurna Yarta)
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Tension is important. Under too much load, things fray, and eventually snap. Too little tension, however, and there’s no push and no pull; only slackness. The right amount of tension can be productive - sharpening senses, attuning us to what is real, risky, and worthy of our attention. Experimental art thrives on tension, drawing its charge from confronting cliches, destabilising norms, proposing new modalities, and cultivating frisson.
Co-curated by ACE Artistic Director, Danni Zuvela and Henry Wolff, Push / Pull features tactile installations, short and durational performance, lecture performance, re-enactment, video, poetry, plants, food, sound, and experimental music. With a strong emphasis on live, experiential, and post-object practice, the program explores what it means to gather around the non-haveable: practices that resist commodification in favour of presence, process, and provocation.
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Artists:
Antony Abbracciavento, Elyas Alavi, Emiko Artemis, Stephen Atkinson, Troy-Anthony Baylis, Alycia Bennett, Jingwei Bu, Patrick William Carter, Luna Chan, Allison Chhorn, Amber Cronin, Dylan Crismani, Eleen Deprez, Stephanie Doddridge, Adam-Troy Francis, Paul Gazzola, Alex Grant, Sasha Grbich, Dominic Guerrera, Ray Harris, Aidan Hughes, Matt Huppatz, Heidi Kenyon, Kirsty Martinsen, Monte Masi, VNS Matrix, Shan Michaels, Ariella Napoli, Alexandra Nitschke, Chris Reid, Yasemin Sabuncu, Fiona Salmon, Cynthia Schwertsik, Gabriella Smart, Soundstream, Trudy Tandberg, Sione Teumohenga, Sarah Tickle, Henry Wolff, Shirley Wu, Robert Wyatt, Jake Yang, Yasser Yassin, Shenshen Zheng, and Students from South Australian School for the Visually Impaired.
Support:
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) is supported by Create SA and Creative Australia.
This project is supported by City of Adelaide and History Trust of South Australia.
Shan Michaels is supported by Arts Queensland.
Special thanks to project partners the South Australian School and Services for the Visually Impaired, and The Mercury.
Feature Image: 'Push / Pull' – 'Can Touch This': Shan Michaels (2025), workshop documentation, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. Photography by Lana Adams.
Also check out other Arts events in Adelaide, Workshops in Adelaide, Fine Arts events in Adelaide.
