Love Your Eyes 2022 Tactile Art Competition Details

Petition for a National Eye Health Survey

In New Zealand, many people are losing their sight unnecessarily. They often don’t know it’s happening until it’s too late. If they had talked to a doctor sooner, they might still be able to see. Not enough people know how serious this problem is!

We don’t want people to wait until it’s too late to seek help. We are asking community groups in New Zealand to hold an art competition in their area to teach people about looking after their eyes. That is why this competition is called “Love Your Eyes”.

Eye Health Aotearoa is an organisation that wants to help people in New Zealand look after their eyes and stop people from going blind. At the moment we don’t even know how many people are going blind, why they are going blind or where they live in New Zealand. This makes it hard for us to to work out how we can help people.

We are asking the Government to pay for a survey to find out. This would be the first ever National Eye Health Survey in New Zealand. We have set up a Change.org Petition which will be presented to the Minister of Health, and we need lots of people to sign it so that hopefully the Government will listen.

It is also important that you, your friends and whānau know that you should have an eye health check every two years. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are. This means any problems with your eyes will be picked up early, hopefully preventing you from becoming blind.

More information about the Petition for a National Eye Health Survey in New Zealand:

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Your community can help by organising a local Tactile Art Competition

"Tactile Art" means art that you can touch. For example, the art could be rough or smooth or fluffy. The art could be made of different shapes or textures that someone with vision loss can feel with their fingers. We also need your help to encourage people to sign our petition and show the Government that we need a National Eye Health Survey!

The best piece of overall artwork from each community competition is to be sent to Wellington for display as part of a national competition from 10 – 14 October.

Prizes at the national competition will be awarded for People’s Choice and Judges' Choice Awards. The prize giving celebration will be Wednesday 12 October on the evening before World Sight Day (Thursday 13 October), which is the international day to encourage people to protect their vision and love their eyes.

Community Tactile Art Competition

It is up to you how you decide to organise your competition but there are few guidelines laid out below.

The artwork should be something to show someone who is blind, deafblind or has low vision, and something that is important to the artist.

How will it work?

We encourage you to design a competition that suits your community, but suggest the following:

1. Three categories for artwork based on age group

i. Children up to the age of 11 years
ii. Children from 12 – 18 years of age
iii. Adults from 19 years of age.

2. Artwork needs to be able to be touched and felt. The artwork can still be colourful and look nice. How it feels (e.g. rough, smooth, fluffy), shape, size and the way it can move is important. It could even make a sound, for example if you shake it.

3. Artwork can be big or small but if it is standing on the floor, like a sculpture or hanging on the wall it shouldn’t be bigger than 1m x 1m. This means we can fit all the artwork into the Art Gallery. The maximum weight is 20kgs. (If you want to make something bigger, please contact us to discuss it).

4. It is important the artwork is strong enough to be transported to Wellington.

5. During the competition we request that you ask people in your community to sign the Change.org Petition asking the Government to pay for the first-ever National Eye Health Survey. We will tell you how to do this.

6. You can arrange to judge your competition in a way that works for your community. The criteria are very simple. We just want it to be fair for everyone.

More information about the Community Tactile Art Competition:

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National Tactile Art Competition

7. Once you have determined your competition's winning piece of art, we will discuss with you how to enter your overall winner in the Love Your Eyes 2022 National Tactile Art Competition to be held in Wellington October 10 - 14 at the Copthorne Hotel Wellington Oriental Bay.

8. The winners of the Love Your Eyes 2022 National Tactile Art Competition will be announced in Wellington on Wednesday 12 October the evening before World Sight Day, Thursday 13 October. We will supply more details about this closer to the date.