Material Workshop with Bent are Nilsen

Including piles of round and squared pieces of plastic, wooden sticks and painted, round wooden pieces, cotton balls.

Bent are Nilsen, who cannot see but hear with help from hearing aid, has an incredible “eye” for details. When trying to recognize the materials of this workshop, he uses his hands and his ears. He touches the material curiously and knocks the pieces carefully against the table - one material by one and then all over again. His guesses of what the pieces actually are are mostly correct. But the painted, round wooden pieces were identified as plastic and the squared pieces of plastic were identified as mosaic. When I tell him what they actually are, he directly answers, “Then these small, round ones have got to be painted? Are they colorful?”

When I ask him to pair, group, select and deselect materials, he thinks for a while and touches the piles again. He likes the wooden sticks because of their rough and truthful surface, as well as the cotton balls, which makes him think of warm clothes or his dog. He pairs the round, hard materials and the wooden sticks with the squared plastic pieces, both pairs defined by shape. The cotton balls are left alone. He does not like the small, rounded wooden pieces, because of their tininess. The fact that I put the piles of materials in a row made him feel aware of where they were. He also guesses that I had put out the materials in a specific order. I had not, however I appreciate that he thinks about it that way. During this workshop his hands never leave the surface of the table.