Blind Travels Founder Named 2026 Artist-in-Residence at Rocky Mountain National Park

One month from now, the founder of Blind Travels will step into a new role as a 2026 Rocky Mountain National Park Artist-in-Residence, beginning on August 18.

According to a post on Blind Travels, the residency will bring together landscape photography, tactile art, audio description, and field recording into a single project. The goal is to explore how a national park can be experienced through sight, touch, and sound, not just one of them.

What the Residency Will Cover

The program pairs four distinct mediums under one creative effort. Landscape photography captures the visual scale of the park. Tactile art gives that same landscape a physical form that can be felt by hand. Audio description translates the visual details of the park into spoken narration. Field recording captures the natural sound of the park itself, from wind to wildlife to running water.

Together, these four approaches point toward a bigger question the residency is built around: how do you make a place like Rocky Mountain National Park accessible to people who experience it differently, whether that means low vision, blindness, or simply preferring a different sense to lead the way?

Why This Matters for the Blind Community

National parks have long been described in almost entirely visual terms. Postcards, brochures, and ranger talks tend to lean on scenery. A residency that treats touch and sound as equally valid ways of knowing a landscape pushes back on that assumption.

For blind and low vision travelers, that shift matters. It signals that the experience of a place like Rocky Mountain National Park does not have to be secondhand. It can be direct, sensory, and personal.

Voice of the Blind will continue following this residency as it develops and will report on the work that comes out of it once the artist begins their time in the park on August 18.