‘World Unseen’ multisensory photography exhibition travels to Iași

The photography exhibition World Unseen, which allows both blind and sighted visitors to experience images through touch and sound, is opening its doors in Iași after attracting over 100,000 visitors in Bucharest. Hosted at the Palace of Culture, the exhibition will be on display from April 29 to July 29.

Organized by Canon Romania in partnership with the “Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History and the “Ștefan Procopiu” Science and Technology Museum, the exhibition has been previously showcased in countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Germany, and the UK, where it was enthusiastically received for promoting inclusion and accessibility in art.

The experience features 12 photographs by internationally acclaimed Canon ambassadors and photographers, including Brent Stirton, Sebastião Salgado, Muhammed Muheisen, and Rareș Beșliu. Each image is reproduced using Canon’s textured printing technology, accompanied by immersive audio guides and Braille descriptions, allowing visitors to explore the stories through touch and sound.

The exhibition is designed to accommodate both blind and sighted individuals. Sighted visitors can wear special glasses simulating six types of visual impairments to better understand the challenges of those with vision loss.

The initiative comes amid global figures showing more than 2.2 billion people live with some form of visual impairment. In Romania alone, over 84,000 people are blind or visually impaired, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity.

(Photo source: the organizers)