Slovenia's first tactile gallery has opened in Nova Gorica municipality, offering blind and sighted visitors alike a fresh, hands-on encounter with iconic artworks spanning centuries.

The Tactile Gallery, located in a shopping centre in Kromberk and run by the regional Goriška Museum, features works of art that can be touched.

The first segment, Existing World, brings re-productions of 32 well-known works adjusted for the blind.

They range from works from ancient Greece to contemporary works, including by Banksy and Slovenian greats such as Ivana Kobilca, Avgust Černigoj and Tone Kralj.

Twelve copies of works came from museums in Italy and students of the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Ljubljana made three ceramic "interpretations" of Černigoj's works.

There are also the models of the famous stone-arched bridge in Solkan and Janez Lenassi's sculpture Icarus, dedicated to Slovenian aviation pioneer Edvard Rusjan.

The Emerging World segment brings 17 contemporary works made especially for this exhibition, with every work of art telling its own story, according to curator David Kožuh.

Boštjan Kavčič's sculpture is for instance made of linden and poplar wood, stone from where the artist lives, and a piece of wood from a 6500-year-old fir tree found last January near Tolmin.

Eleven artists from Slovenia, five from Italy and one from Croatia made the new works in this segment.

Kožuh said the museum had built on its past experience with the blind, who played an important role in the creation of the works made for this exhibition by providing comment and guidance to artists.

"The guiding principle was that the artists pursue their artistic expression with small adjustments, such as the size of the work of art and the absence of sharp edges," said Dragan Abram from the gallery Artes Hiša.

Associations of visually impaired people from Slovenia and Europe have already expressed interest in visiting the exhibition.

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