Hear our sound commission at Sensational Books, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, explores the experience of the book beyond reading.
Designed not only to celebrate the sensory appeal of reading physical books but also to explore the accessibility of reading today to those who are sensory impaired, the exhibition features books and items from the Bodleian’s collections that invite a sensory response across the five senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and beyond.
As e-books continue to grow in use, this exhibition celebrates the material book and the ways in which readers have enjoyed them. Alongside the five senses, this exhibition asks visitors to experience proprioception, the name given at the start of the twentieth century to the sense of self-movement and body-perception.
The exhibition features an extraordinary selection of medieval, pre-modern, modern, and contemporary books, drawn from a range of cultures and in a variety of formats. The exhibition will also feature, for the first time at the Bodleian Libraries, an audio guide that has been made in partnership with people who are visually impaired. This has been led by a group of local people who will give you an insight into how books can be experienced when a sense is changed.
Highlights of the exhibition include:
Dizzy Pragnell’s books, made of vegetables, which encourage the viewer to look with fresh eyes at the familiar.
A 14th century Psalter that has been heavily used for devotions (MS Canon Liturg. 126). The featured page shows an illuminated initial with heaven at the top and the earth below, and the marks on the paint reveal how a reader used the page like a modern touch screen, swiping the soul heavenwards.
A miniature travelling set of 60 books that were bound in red leather for the 8-year-old Prince Charles early in the 17th century and known as Prince Charles’ ‘travelling library’. Each book is the size of a matchbox (Emmerson 1-53)
Sensational Books is co-curated by Kathryn Rudy, Professor of Art History at the University of St Andrews and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford.
Read more here.