Dialogue in The Dark

by Amanda Ariganello-Araujo (Canada)

A leap into the unknown Germany

The woman at the counter handed me my ticket, a key, and as she pointed to the end of the hall she said, “Lockers are straight down there, please leave anything that emits light inside”. At this point, I had absolutely no idea what I was in for and the woman didn’t tell me much. I knew they had three exhibits available, but only one with an English guide, so I signed up for that. I took a seat in a corner of the waiting room where every 15 minutes a guide would come out into the lobby and call their group over to begin. At this point I was happy that this was an activity I could do indoors. The entire time I was in Hamburg, the weather would switch in a matter of moments from being sunny and pleasant to cold and rainy, so the prospect of a dry afternoon was very inviting. When it was our turn, just like the other groups, our guide called us over to join him at the entrance. He introduced himself, shaking hands with each person in turn. “Welcome to Dialogue in the Dark, none of you have your electronics on you, right?” he asked. A few people shook their heads in response, not noticing their mistake. Our guide paused for an extra moment or two, then said, “You all realize I can’t see you…right?”. One woman who nodded turned red in the face, another laughed nervously. “It’s alright: it happens all the time,” he told everyone. He then asked one man in our group to pass out walking sticks to each of us. The walking sticks would be our only assistance while going through the exhibit, aside from verbal cues from the others. “The exhibit is designed to simulate living with a visual impairment. Each room will take you through settings you’re used to being in, but now you’ll need to navigate through them in the dark. I will be here to ensure no one gets lost, or stuck in any of the rooms,” he explained, “to simulate having a visual impairment, the entire exhibit will be pitch black.” I swallowed, and felt the goosebumps popping up all over my arms. I later realized I wasn’t the only one who was nervous. In the first room we kept tripping over each other, with everyone taking baby steps to stay together. In later rooms, once we adapted to the dark our guide tasked us to do simple things for example; in the grocery store we needed to pick up a piece of produce and identify it, or when we were in the house, he had us finding different pieces of furniture. The room that was very overwhelming was designed to simulate a crosswalk during rush hour traffic. The previous rooms were quieter, where our group made the noise. Between the cars, motorcycles, bicycle bells and audio track simulating other people talking, in this room I felt bombarded by noise. Our guide asked us all to stand very tightly together while he gave the explanation for this room, “Your task here, is simply to cross on time,” he told us, “if you pay very close attention, you’ll hear a constant beeping, when the pacing of the beep changes, walk. The crosswalk is 25 steps from end to end.” Our group stayed quiet as possible, trying to listen for the beeping noise. We missed the first few seconds, because our guide had to call out “WALK!” upon noticing no one was following him. Only two of six people in the group made it across on time. Not only was I the last one to cross, I was also the only person that bumped into what must’ve been every single car that they had as part of the display. The most surprising thing to me, was that though this exhibition was only forty minutes away from my hostel in Hamburg, it seemed like that afternoon, I travelled further than I had ever before. I felt not just pushed but thrown so far out of my comfort zone, while doing mostly day to day activities I’d normally do on autopilot. It was absolutely incredible.