New exhibit at Color Factory Chicago offers inclusive experience for the color blind

CHICAGO - Just in time for National Color Blind Awareness Day on Friday, Chicago’s Color Factory is trying to ensure that we can all experience the joy of color.

Thanks to a partnership with a company called EnChroma, they are providing special glasses that allow some guests with color blindness to enjoy a full color palette. For example, one exhibit, "BRIGHT NOISE" by Yuri Suzuki explores the sound of color.

"It’s a play on words. So similar words that you use to describe color also describe sound," explained Trisha Palmer, Color Factory general manager.

The exhibit features brightly colored horns, each color making a different sound but if you had color blindness you would not get the full experience.

"What’s most common is the green-red color blindness. So if you weren’t able to see those color horns you’d be missing out on a key part of the exhibit," said Palmer. "However, with our EnChroma glasses, anyone who has red-green color blindness would be able to put them on and see those colors they wouldn’t normally see, so they can experience everything at its full capacity."

In "Flavorama" by Emilie Baltz, guests can match flavors and colors with the help of a viewfinder and examine how your senses interact.

"The idea here is to do a taste test and see if the colors that you see match the flavors that you taste," said Palmer.

While Friday is National Color Blind Awareness Day, the special glasses are always available to guests of Color Factory, which is located at the base of the Willis Tower.