The ”World Unseen” Exhibition at the Palace of Culture in Iași

For three months, the hallway of the ”Ștefan Procopiu” Science and Technique Museum in the Palace of Culture in Iași, Romania, is the multimedia stage on which an extraordinary exhibition can be not only seen but also finger-felt and heard.

It has been designed in partnership with Canon, with the aim of making photography perceivable by those who usually cannot experience this art medium. The starting point is the fact that photography is a powerful means of expression which is most often not accessible to the visually impaired persons, both blind and partially sighted.

”World Unseen” is therefore an immersive exhibition which uses Canon proprietary technology – PRISMAElevate XL software and Arizona printer series – to turn photography into a multimedia show, involving large size photographs, tactile prints, Braille labels and audio descriptions in a unique design.

It includes a series of twelve stunning photographs created by Brasilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado (”Prayer to the Yanomami Goddess”), Dr. Bill Smith (”Fetal Echography”), the German photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Ulla Lohmann (”Munganau Walks Home”), Dutch Canon photographer and media personality Humberto Tan (”Tomorrow Will Be Better”), Jordanian photojournalist and Canon Ambassador Muhammed Muheisen, two-time Pulitzer prize winner for whom ”Pictures are powerful tools for change” (”A Smile in the Middle of Rubble”), blind and deaf photographer Ian Treherne (”Future”), Dr. Jamie Craggs, Principal Aquarium Curator and Living Collections Manager at the Horniman (”Acropora”), Norwegian photojournalist Aleksander Nordahl (”Love”), South-African born photojournalist and Canon Ambassador Brent Stirton (”Rhino Wars”), fashion photographer and Canon Ambassador Heidi Rondak (”Imagine How the Future Is Watching You”), Romanian Canon photographer Rareș Beșliu (”Fram Raised to the Sky”), Canon Ambassador Samo Vidič (”Darko Durič”, displaying the Slovenian paralympic swimmer born with one arm).

The stories of these photographs are told by the impactful large images themselves, by the tactile pictures, by the Braille text and by the sound of the audio files which can be listened within the microspace of each station or on the own smartphone by scanning the QR code. Each story is unique and equally expressive and overwhelming, while they illustrate entirely diverse fields of human activity, be it life in Papua New Guinea, where a volcano eruption seems to be part of normality (Lohmann), in the heart of Africa where rangers circle the northern white rhino, to protect it against poachers (Stirton), in the Amazon region in Brazil, on its highest mountain Pico da Neblina, with its shamans addressing the gods (Salgado), in a refugee settlement in Pakistan (Muheisen), be it a lifespan as illustrated by the study of the hands of a 100 year-old (Tan), be it the friendship between the beluga whale Hvaldimir and the Norwegian fisherman Joar (Nordahl), be it sports – paralympic swimming (Vidič), be it science – the coral reproduction in land-based facilities (Craggs) or pregnancy monitoring by means of echography (Smith), be it fashion – with an AI-created model (Rondak) or as perceived by a blind and dead photographer rendering disability model Olivia Deane (Treherne).

In Romania, the exhibition was first presented at the ”Antipa” Museum of Natural History in Bucharest, between 4 December 2024 and 2 March 2025, while its second stop is in Iași, at the Palace of Culture, between 29 April and 29 July 2025.

The online Canon gallery also includes several other such photographs with their respective stories: ”As Frozen Land Burns” by Nanna Heitmann, ”Chloe Kelly” by Marc Aspland, ”Saturday Night Pandemic Style”, by Ilvy Njiokiktjien and ”The Process of Re-learning Bodies”, by Yagazie Emezi.

Apart from the stories themselves as told by their authors, the photographers, which help us better understand to what degree photography is an artistic experience, it is also worth pointing out the filters which are dynamically applied to the online photographs, thus allowing the viewer to understand the deteriorations brought to the visual sense by the different diseases: early glaucoma, moderate glaucoma, early age-related macular degeneration, early diabetic retinopathy, moderate diabetic retinopathy, early cataract, moderate cataract, retinitis pigmentosa.

This project coordinated by Canon and implemented in various countries like Croatia, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Germany, United Kingdom and Romania is meant to raise awareness about the 2.2 billion people worldwide suffering from a form of visual impairment, of whom 80% are likely to be treatable or preventable provided the right treatment is administered. Medical education and timely action is therefore a must. If women are slightly prevalent (55%), there are though huge differences between geographical regions, due to the different development degrees around the world, the medium and low income countries being those where there are the highest numbers of people suffering from this condition.

Untold Stories of Visually Impaired People – Canon Europe

The Bond Between a Beluga Whale and its Rescuer – Canon Europe

Nanna Heitmann’s Arctic Wildfires Images – Canon Europe

An Overlook Conservationism Tragedy – Canon Europe

Vibrant Images of Coral Reproduction – Canon Europe

Sebastião Salgado’s Breathtaking Amazon Captures – Canon Europe

An Erupting Volcano and a Boy in its Shadow – Canon Europe

Children’s Joy in a Pakistan Refugee Settlement – Canon Europe

Into the light: Bill Smith’s Ultrasound Aid for Visually Impaired – Canon Europe

Chloe Kelly’s Game-Changing Moment in Football – Canon Europe

Underwater Capture of Darko Đurić’s Strength – Canon Europe

An Extraordinary AI-Generated Fashion Image – Canon Europe