Annalisa is a brilliant partially sighted writer and I’m so pleased Jack Thorne took this opportunity to highlight the shocking cuts to support she, and many other disabled people in the UK, are facing! #Disability #AccessToWork #PartiallySighted #blind | Adolescence writer Jack Thorne slams 'savagery' of government cuts to Access To Work payments

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/jack-thorne-government-access-to-work-cuts/?utm_term=Autofeed

Don’t you just love a coincidence… I was chatting to my hairdresser about starting my etching course again this month and she cuts the hair of a woman whose daughter happens to be Bianca Raffaella who is partially sighted and has some work in a London gallery right now! I know what I’ll be doing next week #blind #PartiallySighted #creativity #art #printmaking #TactileArt #Disability

This sounds brilliant! | In November the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will host Beyond the Visual “the curators in charge of the show hope it can encourage leaders in the world of visual arts to make their galleries and spaces accessible to blind visitors and artists by ensuring suitable works can be touched.”
#TactileArt #art #blind #PartiallySighted #Deafblind #Disability #Accessibility
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jul/14/please-do-touch-sculpture-exhibition-curated-by-blind-people-to-feature-tactile-works?CMP=share_btn_url

I’ve been to The British Library this morning for their audiodescribed art workshop, so much fun! We looked at a very detailed painting by Flemish artist Simon Benning who was working at the start of the 1500s when oil painting techniques were just beginning and the paint was made in the studio. We were all given a tactile diagram produced by a Swell Form machine where the black lines become raised for us to feel. It’s a tricky method as the very complicated painting has to be simplified (e.g. a range of mountains is represented by a thin line and a building in the forground is a much heavier block shape) Our describer Carly talked us through the image from top to bottom and helped us to fill in details in our imagination that she couldn’t include. There was also the opportunity for anyone with useful vision to look at the painting on an iPad and I was delighted to find some Braille on the back of the diagram.
This painting is from The Book of Hours and depicts a July day of haymaking, with large trees in the background and several people in the foreground using farming tools. There was also a dog curled up in the sun.
After our discussion we then had a go at ‘drawing’ using sculpture wire and I did some kind of stylised leaf shape that didn’t quite work! Some people used pliers and came up with some very intricate designs and others tried covering their wire drawing with tissue paper and glue to add texture. Some of the group then went to the exhibition to see the painting on display but by then I was tired from all the concentrating and was ready to head home.
Last time I attended I did some drawings of a papaya on the Swell Form paper so it was exciting to get the finished tactile version back! Some lines were quite light and others very thick, where Id used a paint brush rather than a pen. It is truly wonderful to be able to feel your work, even if it doesn’t always turn out quite how you’d imagined it haha!
I’l be back in the autumn for more experiments.
#TactileArt #blind #PartiallySighted #Braille #library #audiodescription #Disability @disability

With all the changes going on at RNIB I’ve started looking into NFB UK but I’ve no idea how effective it is. Are many other #blind, #PartiallySighted or #Deafblind people in the UK on here members of it, and what do you think of it as an organisation?

This sounds like a wonderful immersive experience for #blind and #partiallySighted people at London Fashion Week but what I want to know is if the detailed audiodescriptions they produced will be made available after the event?! #disability #audiodescription #fashion @disability | #LondonFashionWeek - Tactile sessions aid visually impaired fans - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1en7pgvvvlo

Happy birthday to @bemyeyes I’ve just seen that it’s 10 years old now and I vividly remember what it was like to hear about this amazing app on an RNIB tech podcast when I’d only lost my sight a few months and was struggling with the sudden loss of independence. Using Be My Eyes changed my outlook on doing things myself, I didn’t have to wait for someone sighted to come home to get things done! Over the years I’ve learned so many more tools and stopped using it for a while but now we have Be My AI I’m using it every week again for something - taking my own photos and enjoying the ability to access descriptions of photos on social media if I want to. I always recommend this app to anyone just losing their sight as one of the first things to learn to use #blind #PartiallySighted #Accessibility #BeMyEyes

Just signed this petition to make banking accessible… I often need help accessing my finances as the apps are not very accessible yet #blind #PartiallySighted #Deafblind #Disability #Accessibility #UK
https://tpt.eaction.org.uk/MakeBankingAccessible