The medal touch

Posted 09/10/12 by Heidi Hinder

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As the maker of some well-rounded objects, I have been both intrigued and inspired by roundness.org, and it certainly seems an appropriate place to share a few spherical thought-bubbles on the microcosm that is the art medal.

In 2012, there are few people who would not immediately associate medals with sporting success or military heroism, a wearable badge of honour or some kind of chain of office.

Art medals are not usually wearable but are traditionally considered small-scale sculpture. Typically round, frequently metal, and often about palm-sized, the art medal is a microcosm onto which an artist can inscribe a potent message.

Art medals however, are not usually wearable but are traditionally considered small-scale sculpture. Typically round, frequently metal, and often about palm-sized, the art medal is a microcosm onto which an artist can inscribe a potent message; a world of meaning to be explored through some kind of visual dialogue between the medal’s obverse and reverse, and explored through the sense of touch, in the very tactile experience of these hand-held works of art.

For me, this is one of the greatest charms of the art medal form. Where galleries and museums ominously declare ‘Please Do Not Touch’ next to their large-scale sculptures, art medals intentionally fulfill a physical connection and interplay between viewer, object and maker. Earlier this year, when some of my art medals were on display at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, the curators organised a handling session for visually impaired students, highlighting the value of the art medal as a tangible, material object, with an ability to convey some sense of visual information through haptic means*.

So in rounding up and rounding off, part of my artistic practice continues to explore new ways in which the art medal can stimulate the senses and entice the viewer to behold the world in a miniature work of art.

Heidi Hinder
www.behance.net/HeidiHinder

* For example, the art medal depicted at the top of this article accurately reproduces the topography of the lunar surface so that it can be explored and discovered on a micro-scale, through the sensitivity of the fingertips.
(Designed and cut during a residency at the Royal Mint, Llantrisant)