News

Smart Art; 3D printing for a culture of inclusion

Smart Art is a French consortium that brings together several players from the Greater East region, particularly Champagne Ardenne. Last year they organised an exhibition called “The Essential is invisible to the eyes” for the visually impaired. The works presented ar

Smart art
3Dnatives

Smart Art is a French consortium that brings together several players from the Greater East region, particularly Champagne Ardenne. Last year they organised an exhibition called “The Essential is invisible to the eyes” for the visually impaired. The works presented are indeed tactile and accompanied with a soundtrack so that they can live an experience that brings them closer to culture and art. Some of these works have been 3D printed, showing the link between 3D technologies and disability, joining other projects such as See3D. We met Vincent Marquet, engineer at FabLab SmartMaterial at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne to learn more about the exhibition, the technologies used and the results obtained.

3DN: Can you introduce yourself and the different partners of the project?

We are several partners behind this project, its main bearer being the association Lire Aussi. The Michel Fandre Institute and the Musée de l’Ardenne in Charleville-Mezières (CM) selected the works and organised the exhibition. The Laboratory of Engineering and Materials Science (LSIM) of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne has printed the tactile works. And the University of Technology of Troyes has produced the specifications.

smart art

3DN: How was the Smart Art project born?

For several years, the IFTS of Charleville-Mézières collaborated with the association Valentin Haüy within the framework of student projects whose objective was modeling and the realization of tactile models. For their part, the UTT and the association Lire Aussi worked on the Seeit project for the welfare and development of the autonomy of blind and visually impaired people. Do to their skills, these different organisations came together to respond to the “Innov’action” call for projects launched by the regional council. This project titled Smart Art, had as its main purpose an exhibition of tactile models representing 13 masterpieces of CM museums. The exhibition was named L’essentiel is invisible to the eyes and lasted 3 months.