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Spine-Tingling Engagement in the Pyrotechnic Arts
October 1 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
A seminar about multi-sensory accessibility
Join artist Collin van Uchelen, Ph.D., for an engaging public presentation about his innovative art practice. He will show how to translate the light of fireworks across senses in order to make it accessible in non-visual forms, such as the tactile “Fingerworks for Fireworks” description technique. Collin will also discuss his approach to choreographing pyrotechnic displays that are synchronized to music and provide multi-sensory accessibility.
Together, we will explore how firework displays can have an impact that is experienced both in our bodies and in our emotions. We may feel thrilled by the exhilarating intensity at the finale of a show, and we may also feel tingles or goosebumps in emotional moments that touch us deeply. Collin uses the term resonance to refer to this spine-tingling energy. In this seminar, we will explore how resonance can be created with artistic pyro-musical firework displays.
Drawing on his own experience of sight-loss, Collin will describe how resonance provides a pathway to connect with art in ways that are accessible to all—whether sighted or blind. On a broader level, this presentation also invites participants to consider how the low-vision and blind community can be meaningfully included in public displays of art, including events featuring fireworks.
Collin van Uchelen, Ph.D., is a Community Psychologist, Conceptual Artist, and Pyrotechnician based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His work in the pyrotechnic arts explores techniques for translating the light of fireworks into non-visual forms, such as descriptive words, sounds, and tactile representations. Collin’s appreciation for fireworks is informed by his own experience of progressive sight loss from a degenerative blinding eye disease. Currently, he is choreographing a pyro-musical firework display from his unique position as a designer who is functionally blind.
When: Wednesday, October 1st, 2025; 6pm-7:30pm
Where: Millennium Library, Buchwald Room (2nd Floor)
251 Donald Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3C 3P5