Bombs Away for Louis Braille's Birthday
Submitted by Bruce Maguire, Braille Space.
Braille on Manly Beach Rescheduled: Bombs Away Update
Quick take: Braille on Manly Beach has been rescheduled to allow greater community participation. Read on for the details …
This update contains good news, and FANTASTIC news about the Braille on Manly Beach (BOMB) happening that I alerted you to back in September.
The good news is that it's still a very happening event. The FANTASTIC news is that now even more people can be involved. Why? Because we've decided to postpone it from January 4 until later in the year, probably in late March or mid-April.
Braille on Manly Beach is an innovative community celebration of braille that involves making a braille message in the form of large dots in the sand. Each sand-dot will be .5 metres high and 1 metre in diameter. This sand-sculpted braille message will be made in the inter-tidal zone (the area between high and low tides) along a 50-metre stretch on one of Manly's beaches. The message will take several hours to make, and then it will gradually be carried away by the incoming tide, merging with the sea in a blend of poetry, metaphor, and spray.
Braille on Manly Beach has been conceived by Anne Walton and Bruce Maguire (with assistance from sand sculptor Dennis Massoud and financial support from the Australia Council) as a unique celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. The original plan was to make the braille sand-message on January 4 2009, which is Louis Braille's actual birthday. However, we've decided to postpone it for two main reasons. Firstly, quite a lot of braille users and supporters who would like to be involved will either be away on January 4, or else still in the grip of post-festive hibernation. Secondly, a number of organisations and businesses who are keen to assist us in various ways will also be closed. The extra time will also meant that we'll be able to produce a range of BOMB memorabilia, such as braille T-shirts, bookmarks, and one or two surprises.
So by rescheduling the BOMB, we're hoping that it will be even more exciting, organic, and participatory. The entire year of 2009 has been designated a year of braille celebration, and events to commemorate Louis Braille's singular and liberating achievement will take place locally, nationally and internationally throughout the year.
We're hoping to finalise the new date by early February, together with a detailed program for the day's activities and a range of options for how people can participate. We'll post this information to various email lists, but if you want to be among the first to know, get on the BOMB mailing list by dropping me an email or giving me a call (02 96863665).
So, just to be clear: no Braille on Manly Beach on January 4. Of course, you can still celebrate Louis Braille's birthday wherever you are, whoever you're with, and whatever you're doing. He won't be turning 200 again for a while, so let's all make the most of it.
Bombs Away Celebration of Braille
Today is the 4th of September. What's so special about that, you ask? It's exactly 4 months until the 4th of January. And, er ... what's special about the 4th of January? Well, it will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, and it will begin a year of worldwide celebrations of this historic event in the tide of history.
2009 will be a time for blind people to celebrate the gift beyond price that Louis Braille gave to the world. And it will be a time for us to reach out and invite the community to celebrate with us.
Groups will celebrate January 4 itself in different ways in different places. In Sydney, a group of about 20 blind and sighted people will be working together celebrating this momentous event in a very special and unique way.
We will be down on a Sydney beach (hopefully Manly or Queenscliff, pending approval from the local council), and we will be making a braille message in the sand. The spirit of Louis Braille will meet the spirit of Australia in the sand, the sun, and the surf.
Because we're hoping to use part of Manly beach, we've called the event Braille on Manly Beach, or BOMB for short. Here's the broad outline of the BOMB as we envisage it at the moment:
- From around 3am on January 4, we will start making the braille message in the sand on the shoreline, between the low and high tide points. Each dot will be about 0.5 metre round and 0.5 metre high. The message itself will comprise about 6 words. This exercise in "night writing" will produce a message that stretches along the beach for about 50 metres. Obviously, this will be too big to read with the fingertips. It is meant to be felt in the making - braille will become a whole-of-body experience as we walk in out and through it.
- At sunrise, we will have a concert including a performance by a didgeridoo player and a shakuhachi ensemble (the shakuhachi is a Japanese bamboo flute that produces wonderfully atmospheric music perfect to greet the new day).
- We will then have a French-style breakfast on the beach (with croissants and French champagne, naturally).
- The message-making will continue, and this will be a time when other people who aren't able to be there during the night can participate.
- At around 10am the message will be complete, and so there will be a few formalities, including some personal tributes to braille and blessings from representatives of a number of spiritual traditions.
- By this time, there will be hundreds of people on the beach for a surf carnival, and they will be able to admire the braille and join us in celebrating it. By this time, too, the tide will start to turn.
- At around 1pm, the tide will be lapping at the base of the braille dots, and eventually the message will dissolve and unite again with the expanse of sand and ocean.
- At this point, some specially-designed bottles containing braille and print messages will be released into the sea, to be carried who knows where in the world by the endless ebb and flow of the tides and currents. The words from a particular beach will thus live on through braille.
- At various times during the day, a helicopter or light plane will fly over the braille sand sculpture, to take panoramic photos for showing on TV and the Internet. We will do our best to arrange for parts of the event to be streamed on the Internet so that people who aren't able to come to the beach can still be a part of the celebration.
The idea for making a braille sand sculpture was conceived by Anne Walton, the video performance artist who has developed the Braille Window Project. We have been fortunate to be assisted by Dennis Massoud, a well-known Australian sand sculptor who is himself vision-impaired. At this stage we are still looking for sponsorship to assist people participate in the event and meet the expenses that will be involved. A plastics manufacturer has already agreed to supply the plastic dome-shaped moulds that will be used to make the dots.
Even though it is still in its early stages, the BOMB has already attracted quite a bit of interest, and we have started having discussions with various media organisations.
We realise, of course, that this isn't the way everyone wants to celebrate Louis Braille's 200th anniversary (for one thing, it will involve being on the beach for several hours). However, if you are interested in celebrating with us, or would like to be put on a mailing list for updates as our plans unfold, please contact me, either by email or phone. My phone number is 02 96863665.
The Braille on Manly Beach event won't be a birthday party with candles, icky cake and fairy bread - where's the poetry and symbolism in that! Rather, it will be a chance for those of us whose lives are daily enriched through braille to celebrate it creatively and meaningfully in a way never to be forgotten. As we feel the braille with our hands and our hearts and share it with others, we will be empowered to rejoice in the genius and generosity of the human spirit.
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