Accessible art
Art should engage all our senses, not just sight. In this post, I share some accessible art from Whakatū (Nelson) — the Braille waiata on the Aratuna Bridge.
The Mahitahi river
The Mahitahi river in Whakatū (Nelson) is probably one of my favourite places on the planet. The sound of the river helps me clear my mind. I sometimes feed the eels in the river.
🔈 Listen to the Mahitahi River
I stood by the river and recorded its sounds with a stereo 48 kHz microphone. It was recorded in a lossless format, and converted to FLAC — a direct unmodified signal from the river to the web. I think this article is best read while listening to the river. It’s designed to loop endlessly.
Transcript: Continuous sound of a flowing river.
The Aratuna Bridge
Spanning across this river, is a bridge — the Aratuna Normanby Bridge.
Aratuna means “pathway of eels” in te reo Māori, which is a fitting name.
One day while exploring Whakatū, I stumbled across something incredible — the handrail on the Aratuna Bridge features multiple waiata (songs), engraved into the stainless steel. The engravings feature both visible Māori and English text, and raised Braille dots — making it accessible for people who are blind that use Braille.
The engraved steel handrails and waiata were designed by Brian Flintoff and Grant Palliser. The waiata celebrate the Mahitahi river, and the eels that call it home.
Eels are unusual creatures. New Zealand longfin eels can live up to 80 years, before they migrate to the Pacific Ocean, where they breed and then die. Interestingly, the official Department of Conservation webpage on eels calls them secretive. What secrets are they keeping from us? Eels — Department of Conservation.
Multisensory art
I think there’s a shortage of multisensory art in Aotearoa New Zealand.
It’s pretty rare for me to walk into a gallery, a museum, or any other public space where art is kept, and to find an audio-based, or touch-based piece of art. While they certainly do exist, it’s not common.
You notice visual primacy everywhere once you learn about it. The default mode of galleries is to display visual art and not much else. Touching art is a serious offence.
Sometimes, blind people are offered “touch tours” of galleries — which, I suppose is a nice idea, but I don’t think that’s an equitable experience. The art needs to be designed to be experienced through different senses for it to be equivalent.
That’s why I found the Braille-engraved waiata on the Aratuna Bridge so interesting. Somebody actually thought about it.
Poem for Mahitahi river
While sitting by the river, I wrote this.
i am human
i hear the river’s frequencies
its sound drowns out all worries
i see the churning water, over stone, over gravel
carving its path of centuries
i feel rock and gravel beneath me — the crisp breeze on my skin
i smell the clean, refreshing air
it helps to clear my mind
i love the mahitahi river, its tuna — and other inhabitants
i am river
i hear the raging floods, the rapids, the tranquil rainfall
i see the seasons change a thousand times, and again
i feel the fish, the plants, the algae, caught in delicate balance
i smell the human damage — from cars, from pipes, and culverts
i love the changing landscape, the paths that i will carve
Sources
Aratuna Normanby Bridge — theprow.org.nz
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Changelog
Last updated on: 30 April 2025