Seeing with all Senses—Semra Sevin: (In)visible Differences

What if one could not only see installations but also hear, feel, and smell them, all at the same time? The latest series of exhibitions (In)visible Differences by Berlin-based artist Semra Sevin turns the multiple, elaborately developed, sculptural parts of the exhibition into a barrier-free, accessible holistic work of art for all of the senses.

With her current internationally touring exhibition, Semra Sevin is not only opening up her art to blind people and people with visual impairments, who are her main target group, but also offers people without visual impairments a variety of ways to experience what our senses are able to create together and what is missing when one of these senses is blocked out. Given that her installations are centred around highly intuitive exhibits that come to life through personal experimentation and exploration, this series of expositions requires very few descriptive or explanatory text panels. That is how universal comprehensibility is achieved.

How? When? Where?

Sevin's current exhibition, which is inclusive and multimedia-based, is titled (In)visible Differences (in Honduras: Differencias (In)visibles). It was first shown at the Zagreus Project Gallery in Berlin from mid2022 to early 2023, then at the Kunstverein Viernheim in spring 2024. Since November 15, 2024, it has been on display at the Centro de Arte y Cultura, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. The Centro de Arte y Cultura is situated in an economically weaker neighbourhood and is therefore even more committed than other institutions to involving the people living there. And the end is not yet in sight. Further locations are currently being negotiated in several countries. The various areas of the exhibition evolve from stage to stage; the technology is more advanced in Honduras, and the interactive stations are more sensitive—in other words, different—than in Berlin in 2022. This is another reason why the artist is hoping for a possible date for an exhibition in the city that is currently her chosen hometown and where it all began for (In)visible Differences.

Where it all Started

But let's take another step back: how did this exhibition actually come about? Sevin's approach is a participative one. Her works always begin with an intensive, sensitive, and yet ruthlessly honest encounter with people from marginalised groups. As the daughter of Turkish parents who always cultivated an open, humanistic tone at home, Sevin has always been interested in topics such as identity and the diversity of people in our society. As a basis for the stages of the travelling exhibition, she conducted numerous online interviews with blind and visually impaired people from four different continents. This research was funded by the BBK Berlin, Neustart Kultur, and the German Federal Government for Culture and the Media. It was during this phase that Sevin's first public project for the blind and visually impaired was realised: an inclusive sculpture on Betty Hirsch Platz in Berlin, named after the blind pioneer of the very same name. The responses of her interview partners revealed to Sevin their wishes and needs regarding art and culture, but also concerning their ability to communicate with people with differing conditions. Initially, her main target group were blind people and people with visual impairments. (In)visible Differences was developed by Sevin with a great deal of empathy for these people's perception of art and is thus building a bridge between the different worlds of experience. Yet this focus shifted when it became apparent that experiencing art—especially three-dimensional art—through multiple senses is something that brings added value to a wide variety of people with a multitude of different dispositions.

A Tour of the Exhibition

The layout of (In)visible Differences changes depending on the exhibition venue, as it is adapted to the local settings. The rooms are always relatively dark, with spotlights on the main installations so as not to put too much emphasis on the visual sense. The other senses ought to be at least equally important. To make her exhibitions as accessible as possible for blind and visually impaired people, a guidance system for the blind has been in place since Honduras, connecting the individual sections in a meaningful way.

Elements that are particularly important to Sevin and which she therefore endeavours to incorporate at every stage of the travelling exhibition include the chains hanging from the ceiling, which produce different sounds when touched. One moves towards them, passes through them, feels the chains with one’s hands, face, and whole body. In addition, the acoustic impulses that are heard put visitors in an open mood for a multitude of sensory perceptions. This installation is experienced entirely by the senses and by intuition. A similar immersive effect is created by the interactive installation consisting of small pools of water, which also produce sounds when the surface of the water is touched. This space is accessible to several visitors at the same time—even complete strangers—which brings them together and evokes a certain sense of community through the simultaneous production of sound. Together with the staircase, which produces sounds with every step, these installations are essential to the overall experience of (In)visible Differences.

Sevin's abstract portraits created with a 3D printer, which the artist obtained by re-coding photographic self-portraits of the people previously interviewed, are, in contrast, intellectually far more charged. The recorded conversations resound while viewing the sculptures and stimulate the imagination of the visitor. What's more, the artist combines these abstract portraits with the favourite scents of the people represented. This puts the abstraction into perspective and creates the impression that you are actually getting to know these people through their representatives.

In a variation of this idea, Sevin installs wigs on smartphones and has an AI (currently ChatGPT) talk to visitors as if they were chatting to famous blind people and people with visual impairments, such as Betty Hirsch and Helen Keller. Here, visitors may and should, of course, also touch, hear, and smell the wigs until a concrete image of the people portrayed emerges in their own imagination. So Sevin not only appeals to all the senses, but also plays with the emotions they generate and encourages visitors to fill in visual gaps with the help of their own imagination, stimulated from the outside. The combination of different sensual perceptions transforms the abstract portraits into a tangible experience of the real people.

Depending on the layout of the exhibition venue, further installations and, if there is enough space, entire environments are added. In Viernheim, for instance, there was an additional room in which scents, sounds, heat, or vibrations were triggered by the mere movement on a special floor covering. Unlike with the previously described exhibits, here the visitors were confronted with rather unpleasant sensual sensations. The room itself was the exhibit in this case, which, like most of Sevin's works, would not work without the visitors’ participation—indeed, one could almost say that the exhibit would not exist without the visitors.

Also, in Viernheim, with an artistic suggestion of fabrics on washing lines, one room was transformed into a perceived outdoor space with freshly washed laundry drying, including the smell of fragrant detergent, which was dispersed throughout the room by a diffuser. To experience this installation through the senses in the best possible way, one had to actively move through the room and through the ‘laundry’, whereby the sensation of touch was once again involved.

In Sevin's exhibitions, the sense of taste, which is the most difficult to incorporate into an art exhibition, often develops through associations made by the visitors. Depending on individual perception, a metallic taste may be evoked when walking through the chain curtains and by touching the water surface of the water-sound basins, a taste of mineral water. Yet the first stage of the exhibition in Berlin also offered a very real taste experience: the gallery operator, curator, and chef Ulrich Krauss organised four-course meals within the exhibition, which perfectly complemented the sensual experience of art.

More Value for Everyone Who is Willing to Get Involved

What was once initiated as a participatory exhibition for the blind and visually impaired with various exhibits and objects for them to experience through their senses has developed into a complete work of art. Everyone who is willing to get fully involved will gain additional value from a visit. The different stages are interrelated and thus simply cannot be fully experienced on their own. Thus, together with all the other visitors and not least from one's own imagination, a coherent experience of sight, movement, smell, sound, and feeling is created.

Iris Haist wrote this text in German.