The exhibit Envisioning Technologies will launch at 4pm on Friday, October 14th at the Department of History of Carleton University (4th floor, Paterson Hall). It will follow the second public Shannon Lecture, given by Dr. Melanie Panitch of Ryerson University (to be held in MacOdrum Library). The exhibit is the latest creation of Carleton University’s Disability Research Group. It will include six panels, equipped with QR codes that can be scanned to access the text, as well as the virtual version of the exhibit. In the main office (400 Patterson), interested people can read the braille text of all exhibit panels (courtesy of Richard Marsolais), as well as engage with a touchable display of objects from the CNIB and the New Sun Joy MacLaren Adaptive Technology Centre of MacOdrum Library. A glass-case display of objects from the Canadian Science and Technology Museum will also be present. If you require additional guidance to the exhibit or have any questions, please let us know by emailing Dominique.Marshall@carleton.ca. This exhibit is also intended to travel. If you have any ideas of potential future locations, please be sure to let us know.
The above image is a brief preview of the exhibit itself, including images of a user at the world’s first talking ATM in 1997, a red braillewriter hand-made by Roland Galarneau, a Quebec engineer who was blind, as well as CNIB teacher Elizabeth Rusk with Edna Sharpe in 1934. The introductory text reads, “Envisioning Technologies: An Exhibit on the History of Disability and Technology: Through stories of activism, ingenuity and engineering innovation, the exhibit considers how people who were blind or partially sighted reshaped broader discourses of disability, technology and access in Canada from 1860 to the present.” To access the rest of the exhibit text on this panel and others, read our recent posts, beginning with this.