iz paehr

Tactile Descriptions Workbook

Various small objects, each with a different texture, are scattered across a brochure titled “a workbook to write, record, sign Tactile Descriptions.” From the left, a hand reaches into the frame, its fingers holding a small, cool stone. Lying on the brochure are textile elements such as delicate ribbons and fabric scraps, a flower with its stem, and a keychain featuring a glittering mini disco ball. The brochure itself rests on a printed text where terms like “nonlinear,” “perception,” and “force” are visible. Summer light and soft shadows create a playful atmosphere.

Workbook, Print, PDF, and Website with an Audio Version, 2026

A tactile description puts experiences of touch into words. On the project's website tactiledescriptions.com you can find a PDF workbook and audio versions to guide you through the process of writing tactile descriptions.

Workshops & Activations

Feeling Your Way Through Words / Nach Worten Tasten, KV Leipzig, September 2026

Photograph of a short hand written tactile description in pink that wraps around a small hole drilled through a dark table-like display. The descriptions reads: Das Loch ist so schwer wie die Luft im Loch. In English this translates to: The hole is as heavy as the air within the hole.

The photo shows two women touching a human sized fluffy figure, which is one of the artworks by Theresa Rothe displayed in the exhibition at Leipzig Kunstverein. The figure has blue fur, and a tiny face that feels sticky to the touch. The woman on the right is beding her body so that she fits underneath the figure’s voluminous arm. Her own arm comes up, and touches the figures fur above its belly. The other woman is lying on the ground, and reaching upwards to feel the leathery belly of the creature. Both women are holding a Tactile Descriptions Workbook booklet in the hand that is not touching the figure. The mood is curious and playful.

This photo collage shows the tactile descriptions workbook opened on a dark table display. The double page guides participants through writing exercises on temperature, humidity and state of matter. Some notes are placed next to the booklet. Atop, another photo is visible. This photo is smaller on shows a hand touching a round, frosty ice cube that lies within a 3D printed spiky holder.

How can tactile experiences be put into words? We touch and describe the artworks in the exhibition with outstretched arms and tongues searching for words. Where do our hands or cheeks feel the coolness of reliefs, and how can we describe to others the softness of textile elements against our backs, legs, or fingertips? Guided by the Tactile Descriptions Workbook, a tactile guide and handbook, we explore tactile dimensions such as weight, shape, texture, temperature, vibration, and memory. In doing so, we experiment with access: description is a practice of knowledge production that involves translating sensory experiences into written, spoken, or signed forms.

Curated by Mia Junker & Lisa Dreykluft | Link: Workshop Announcement

Tactile Descriptions, Materialsammlung / Material Collection at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, May 2026

This photo of the material collection shows a large room. The walls are made from wooden panels, the ceiling is made from concrete. The room is filled with large shelves that hold a variety of different materials such as glass, wood, felt, plastics and more.

The title of this opened page from the tactile descriptions booklet reads: Friction. Underneath the instructions on the page, someone has drawn spiky lines.

Photo of a dark and glitering structure within a glass. The structure is as big as a fist, seems like a stone with an irregular surface at first, but is more brittle. The structure is: asphalt.

What role does the sense of touch play in spatial orientation? How can sensory perception be translated into language, and language into sensory perception? This workshop took place as part of Iz Paehr's guest professorship semester "TOUCHING, SENSING, BENDING: DESIGNING TACTILE ACCESS".

Touching-Making Access by Building Tactile Archives, Berlin Science Week, November 2025

A workshop participant with orange hair tied up in a bun is sitting at a large table full of fabric samples and large pieces of paper. She is moving a piece of fabric through her hands and seems very focused. Two other participants, one sitting opposite and one further back at a different table are writing onto the large pieces of paper.

Closeup of workshop participants touching fabric samples during the workshop. While one person's two hands are holding and carefully caaressing a small piece of fabric, another person's hand is placing a pencil atop their writing. Various pieces of paper and more materials, such as strings, are scattered across the table.

Let's get in touch with touch! This workshop brings together disability access, touch and digital archiving.

In this workshop, we will follow what our hands and bodies know about touch. Through language and embodied practices we will disrupt the primacy of the visual and question the relationships between touch, access and digital archival practices. What you'll need? Your hands (or feet, arms, backs..) and some curiosity. We will begin by tuning into our tactile sensibilities, and write our own tactile descriptions. A tactile description puts experiences of touch into words. It communicates how it feels to touch, be touched and be in touch with a touchthing. How heavy is this thing? How cold, slippery, opulent, textured, humid is another? This is a space for trying things out with touch and with language.

Photos: Liesa Johannsen | Link: Workshop Announcement

Crip Tactile Descriptions, AccessTech Group at TU Vienna, October 2025

SQUISH! This image overlaps photos of Iz hands playing with a squishy stim toy. Hands and textures overlap, creating the appearance of different surfaces that are partially skin, partially stim toy.

A closeup photo of a workshop participant putting their finger into some water within a transparent water bottle. Around it, a question reads: Is the touchthing dry, moist, wet? The photo is in a bouncy looking frame, and the text is seperated into small bits that playfully surround the image.

In this playtest / workshop we will experiment with the access practice of writing tactile descriptions. A tactile description puts experiences of touch into words. It communicates how it feels to touch, be touched and be in touch with a touchthing, while also asking if there ever is such as thing as a thing. Tactile descriptions sit close to other access practices such as visual descriptions, and work against the grain of what DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark calls distantism: the privileging of senses that work at a distance. In this playtest we will try out my tactile descriptions workbook, and collect our access desires for this emerging practice. Join in to get in touch with touch, and bring any stimmy, bouncy, textured.. objects that you would like to feel along with.