Braille-Friendly Sculpture Made Of Nails And Screws Unveiled At Indian Art Festival

TheTravel

By Josh Coulson

Published Oct 22, 2018

A sculpture at Durga Puja, one of India's biggest festivals, has been created using nails and screws so that blind people can experience it too.

via businessinsider.in

A sculpture at Durga Puja, one of India's biggest festivals, has been created using nails and screws so that blind people can feel it and experience it too.

Fortunately for a great many of us, knowing what it's like to live out your life not being able to see anything is something we won't have to experience. To those of us with sight, it is almost unfathomable to imagine how different life must be for a blind person.

Just think of some of the things we take for granted that if we suddenly lost our sight, we would no longer be able to do. Watch TV, see our loved ones, even read this article. Like we said, hard to get your head around. The art world is also one that, for the most part, the blind are unable to appreciate.

Not if you happen to be visiting Durga Puja in India. Durga Puja is a massive Hindu festival that takes place in India. It features numerous works of art each year, and this time is home to a sculpture that is extremely unique, as reported by Business Insider. A sculpture made entirely out of screws and nails that blind festival goers can feel in order to experience it.

The sculpture is made out of an incredible 20,000 screws and 1,200 nails, and it took artists three months to complete. As with most works of art, rules at Durga Puja normally dictate that visitors do not touch any of the exhibits. However, with the Durga statue, obviously, quite the opposite is encouraged. The sculpture is of the Hindu Goddess's head, as you can see, and it isn't the only way in which the festival has tried to improve the lives of the blind.

The aim of the committee who came up with the idea, Samaj Sebi Sangha, is to educate people who might not know that they can actually donate their eyes when they die. It has set up the M.P Birla Eye bank near the sculpture to make festival goers aware of the fact that they can do that, and can even sign up there and then. At the time of typing this, 85 people have signed up through the bank to donate their eyes to the blind after their death.