This roundtable brings together artists Bouchard, Bucionis, Johnson, and Hunt, each working across different sensory modalities, to challenge conventional assumptions about perception and imagination. By exploring how imagination emerges through diverse sensory experiences—starting with but extending beyond the dominance of visual perception—this discussion offers new perspectives on communication, creativity, and sensory diversity.

Imagination is often framed as a primarily visual process, but what happens when vision is absent or reconfigured? Johnson and Hunt begin the conversation with imagination as a response to visuality, examining how mental imagery is constructed through language, memory, and sensory substitution. From there, Bucionis will direct the discussion to the auditory realm, where sound evokes presence, memory, and emotion, constructing imagined spaces in ways distinct from vision. Whether through music or field recordings, auditory experiences generate multisensory perceptions that challenge conventional understandings of imagination.

Finally, Bouchard explores imagination through performative practices that engage the body and multiple senses. Immersive performances designed for blind and visually impaired audiences use movement, touch, and sound to create deeply embodied imaginative experiences. These novel approaches to performance and theatre reshape how imagination operates beyond sight, expanding the possibilities of artistic expression and audience engagement.

Speakers:
• Kevin J. Hunt (Nottingham School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University, UK)

• David Johnson (Royal College of Art, London, UK)
• Vytautas Bucionis (Ornithologist / Music, Université de Montréal, Canada) ∆
• Audrey-Anne Bouchard (Theatre artist and researcher, Montreal, Canada) ∆