Bombs Away for Louis Braille's Birthday
Submitted by Bruce Maguire, Braille Space.
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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