The Blind-Led Tours Project
Hosted by Amy Amantea
The Blind-Led Tours project at Grunt Gallery is an accessibility initiative that reimagines the traditional gallery tour by centering blind and low-vision leadership, interpretation, and sensory experience. Rather than treating blindness as a barrier to visual art, the project positions blind perception and interpretation as valuable curatorial knowledge. The tours encourage audiences to slow down, think critically about how art is communicated, and consider whose perspectives are typically prioritized in gallery spaces.
Facilitated by blind tour leaders such as Gagan Kaur, the tours invite blind, low-vision, and sighted audiences to experience exhibitions through detailed verbal description, conversation, tactile exploration, and non-visual ways of engaging with art.
Join the conversation with Kay Slater, Exhibitions and Accessibility Manager at Grunt Gallery and co-lead of the Accessible Engagement Project. Within the Blind-Led Tours initiative, they help develop the accessibility framework, tactile co-learning methods, training structures, and overall philosophy behind the program; and Gagan Kaur, who leads the tours themselves. Gagan guides participants through exhibitions using rich verbal description, tactile exploration, discussion, and blind-centered ways of experiencing art.
I am so excited to call these two wonderful humans both colleagues and friends. Please join us!
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Guest Bios
Gagan Kaur (she/they) is a blind, Queer, and Indo-Canadian emerging writer and artist. Gagan is currently completing her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. They have been blind since birth, and have been presenting on their lived experience with their disability since 2017.
Kay Slater (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist, creative access practitioner, accessibility consultant, exhibition designer, and arts worker. As Exhibitions and Accessibility Manager at grunt gallery, they work to plan and build exhibitions alongside our exhibiting artists as a preparator with more than 10 years of experience. They are co-lead on the Accessible Engagement Project (AEP), and chair the grunt Accessibility Committee.
They host the bimonthly, low-barrier, public program “How is it done? Behind-the-Scenes Exhibition Tours” on the last day of every exhibition exploring installation and accessibility techniques in gallery. They also host the weekly low-sensory and silent (voice-off) visiting hours on Thursday.
Currently, they are working with a cohort of 4 blind and low-vision artists on the blind-led interpretive tours training program at grunt gallery that will provide public programming at four local institutions later in 2026.
Their work is rooted in anti-oppression practices, and they employ open source and community-engaged approaches to support ongoing knowledge transfer with makers and creators at all stages of their careers. They proudly work as a substitute teacher with the team at Queer ASL, and have completed the Rick Hansen Foundation’s Accessibility Certification program. They are also certified as an Interpretive Specialist by the Interpretive Guides Association. Kay is passionate about sharing knowledge with the wider arts community, addressing assumptions, and embracing mistakes. Kay is a white European descendant and settler and is queer, mad and hard of hearing. They subscribe to the New Sincerity philosophy, which encourages people to embrace love and authenticity and to be more awesome.
Visit kay on the website kdot.ca or at grunt.ca/staff-kay-slater
