00:00Interesting.
00:01There's even some that feel they're closed.
00:04Because you feel a leaf and you feel like a higher bump at the end.
00:10It's often off-limits to get this close to a painting, let alone touch it.
00:14At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, though, staff have come up with a way for blind visitors like Kimberly
00:20to experience the artworks firsthand.
00:23When I can feel it or hear it myself, I can make my own opinions and vision.
00:30What happens when visitors are able to touch, smell and hear the artworks in an exhibition?
00:39This is the frame.
00:41A lot of details.
00:43I remember a bit of this frame, but it's better feeling it than lost memory.
00:49It's really elegant.
00:52At the museum, visitors can experience art through multiple senses.
00:56Kimberly is visiting the exhibition for the first time, along with other blind guests.
01:02Well, welcome here.
01:03I thought about starting with this.
01:06There's a little sculpture of the head of Vincent van Gogh.
01:11It's based on his self-portraits.
01:14With both ears or one?
01:15With both ears, yes.
01:19So, it's so weird because as a blind person, I don't normally touch faces.
01:24I am aware of that.
01:26I have to unsubscribe, but this feels like a personal intrusion.
01:29Yes.
01:33I've been sighted my entire life.
01:35When I was about 15, 16, I had a really bad accident where I got somebody at the back of
01:41my head.
01:41And now I am fully blind, but I still see light and shadow perception.
01:49I love that it feels like it is a painting.
01:52Yeah.
01:53It feels smooth like a normal face would be.
01:56Kimberly saw van Gogh's paintings once before she lost her sight, but she barely remembers them.
02:04My memory is more in other senses.
02:06It's not visual, but I know it's there, I can feel it, I know what it should taste like, what
02:12it should feel like.
02:12So, this scent is developed for the museum to give an impression about the work.
02:20I smell something really sweet.
02:23It's almost like a lemonade syrup would be.
02:26It's quite flowery, maybe a bit more vanilla-like.
02:32Berend, too, is visiting the van Gogh exhibition for the first time.
02:36He's been blind since birth.
02:37I wouldn't like to smell it at the intensity, I smell it here, but as a background scent would be
02:42pretty nice.
02:45The sweet scent aims to create the impression of standing beneath a blooming almond tree.
02:50Visitors are able to touch a 3D rendering of the original.
02:56The branches remind me to old hands.
03:00Yes, like the knuckles and such.
03:02Yeah, yeah.
03:02You feel a lot of information.
03:05That's what my hands are for.
03:07Yeah.
03:08These are my eyes.
03:09When they don't work, something else fills it in.
03:13The regular exhibition is still primarily aimed at visitors without visual impairment.
03:18Guests can book the smell and touch tour in advance.
03:23Emine Turan coordinates the education program and tours for visitors with disabilities.
03:28They deserve just as much to experience the art, and in this way we can give that to them.
03:35It's not always easy to make these kind of programs, and you need someone in the museum who's really dedicated
03:42to accessibility.
03:45The Van Gogh Museum tour is just one of many projects where visual art is being made accessible for blind
03:51people.
03:52For example, Bobby Goulder, himself living with vision loss, has composed seven original pieces for well-known paintings.
03:59The project is called Sound of a Masterpiece.
04:09Really, really calm, and it really sounded like you were, like, within nature.
04:15Like there's a frog jumping from, like, water lily leaves, for example.
04:24The composition is for Claude Monet's The Water Lily Pond.
04:29The only new thing that I didn't hear anything of was the bridge.
04:33That was a Japanese-style bridge arching over the water.
04:36But the soundtrack really relies on how that pond sounds.
04:41It was really beautiful.
04:44Just like that, a painting becomes much more than simply an image.
04:48We forget that there's so much more we can feel, smell, hear, for example.
04:54It's not just for us, or for me, it's for everyone.
05:00When art speaks to all the senses, it transforms into an experience for everyone, no matter their abilities.
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