£400 worth of cash prizes are available for the best poem on sensing museum artworks and everyday objects.
King's has partnered with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to host a creative writing competition for blind and partially sighted creative writers. Submissions are welcome for a piece of creative writing (prose or poetry in any form or style), centred on your experience of a museum trip, piece of art, or even household object.
Taking the lead from the RNIB's motto, 'See differently', the competition celebrates these different ways of seeing, beholding, and sensing museum artworks and everyday objects. This piece of creative writing can be based on a real experience, or serve as imagined storytelling, so long as it is grounded in visual or material culture as experienced by a person with sight loss. The aim is to explore and celebrate how people with sight loss experience and enjoy museums, art, and objects. No previous experience of creative writing is required and the deadline is 5pm Friday 2nd February 2024.
Prizes
First prize: £250
Second prize: £100
Third prize: £50
Some inspiring suggestions include:
- Articulate your sensory experience of a museum visit or artwork or object.
- Describe a museum access event for blind and partially sighted people.
- Create an audio description from your perspective.
- Portray a museum visit made independently, or with companions.
- Imagine your ideal future access event.
- Review access provision, such as touch tours or the use of raised line drawings.
- Centre touch in your interaction with objects in a touch description.
- Create an imagined story inspired by a material object as you experience it.
- Compose a piece inspired by an artwork, object, or heirloom from home, or to engage with a memory from the past.
