The tactile exhibition “Touch and Understand – the Tactile Message of the Traditional Peasant Objects” was made in the year 2009 having the support of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund within the project “Equal Changes in the Access to Culture”.
The exhibition is designed primarily to the visitors with visual impairments, offering also an experience of a special type to the common visitors, especially to a special age category: children eager to touch and handle such objects.
It seemed to us that this exhibition has to be integrated thematically to our present basic exhibition, to present the same important fields of the traditional culture but through a different perception.
Taking into consideration the available space, there were selected those fields which are suited to the tactile variant: picking, traditional fishing, agriculture, animal breeding, metal processing craft, pottery craft, sheepskin making craft, homemade textile industry and traditional costumes.
We have tried to select those objects that are not in danger of being destroyed by a tactile investigation and which allow the outline of the peasant universe as an organic whole closed to the nature. The replicas of the patrimony objects were made in traditional techniques by the folk craftsmen in various regions of Transylvania.
The exhibition is equipped with podotactile bands marking the interest points (entrance/exit of the exhibition; stop points for the exhibition units and at the infokiosks, the access to utilities), facilitating the individual guidance in the exhibition space.
The informative texts are displayed both in a written way (Braille alphabet and usual print) and in an audio way. In addition, the access to the information is facilitated by the drawings executed in relief.
The two playing corners at the beginning and at the end of the tactile exhibition offer to all the children the opportunity to experience the contact to the traditional toys.