Today is International World Sight Day, an event observed every second Thursday of October to raise public awareness for blindness and visual impairment. I thought it fitting to post about my current exhibition of portraits of community members who are blind and their works. The exhibition is installed at the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library.
My artistic vision dictates the photographs I create. However, I don’t want to
photograph for the aesthetic value alone.
The world is saturated with images, and we may find ourselves thoughtlessly
assigning the title of “beautiful” to rote things. The primary purpose of this project is
to break barriers of routine and expand our vision of beauty through all the senses.
Through this body of work, I photographed and interviewed members of the blind
community. Some have lived without sight since the day they were born; others
have lost sight later in life. A few have degenerative sight. I gave each person
a disposable camera, as a tool to capture what they find uniquely significant. These
images are displayed alongside the portraits I created of them. The camera becomes their
eyes for us to see into their world.
This project is concerned with the inner significance of beauty, not simply the
exterior. These eight individuals teach great lessons of how to appreciate the parts
of this world we no longer seem to notice. As master painter Edgar Degas states,
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Kate Loveless // Worland, WY
Light is beautiful. I can see light better than anything, but I actually see better in dim light than bright light. Whether it is a holiday light, reflection off an appliance, a sunset or the moon, light is beautiful to me.
Everything gives off a presence. It will tell you if it is warm or cold, hard or soft, solid or hollow. The object may tell you by sound, or feeling, smell, or taste. If you pay attention, you can aim a camera, shoot, and often capture more than what your eyes could ever see. Look with all your senses, not just with your sight. See what you find. It might amaze you to find out just how good of a photographer you really are.
Kirt Manwaring // Orem, UT
Bacon is beautiful to me. So is my face and masculine body. Your smile is beautiful. Mountain Dew is extraordinarily beautiful. This writing is definitely not beautiful.
Ok, I’m guessing you don’t want a litany or a simple list. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re thinking, “I really wonder what a blind person’s concept of beauty might possibly be.” I mean…we can’t see right? Does that change our idea of beauty in some drastic way? Honestly, I have no idea, but I think not.
The world around me is beautiful. People building families and quietly giving people a leg up, without fanfare is the most awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. Friendship makes me happy. I really love listening to a waterfall, reading a book, or just arguing politics for the fun of it. When parents devote their lives to their children, or when spouses sacrifice for the shared joy of their relationship, I can’t help feeling inspired. Even city streets, with all the hustle and bustle and to-do of daily life leave me breathless sometimes. Is this beauty? Maybe. Probably. I think so.
Author’s note: I said I wouldn’t give you a litany or just a boring list, and now I’ve gone and done exactly that. Lying isn’t beautiful folks.
Rachel Reed // St. George, UT
I found out that I was beginning to lose my vision when I was 13. Since, I have appreciated more of the beauty around me that I won’t always be able to enjoy. Some of the things that are beautiful to me are the salty smell of the ocean, and the sound and feel of it. I love to see the blue gray of the water and watch the waves come pouring in. I love to look at the sky on days when the sun isn’t out, on cloudy days or at dusk. I love to see the silhouette of the mountains in front of the sunset. I love to see the greenery of a forest, and to watch at least the shape of rivers and waterfalls. I love to ride in a car at night and see the lights of the city. I love to lay on the grass and look up at the sky at night, even though I haven’t seen stars for years, I can still appreciate how big the sky is.
John Kingston // Nieuwgein, Holland
“Music is my life. It brings my family together. I haven’t lived near my brother for a long time. Whenever I play or listen to music it connects me with my brother. My family sees me for me and not my eyes. Music gives me what my eyes can’t. I see the world in motion 90% of the time.”
Chris Jeffries // Manchester, England
Beauty for everyone whether you can see or whether you are blind is subjective. It’s one of the most subjective concepts by which I mean that on a basic level, what one person considers beauty, for the next person might not do anything at all for.
For sighted people, vision is the primary sense and the first point by which the world around them is processed on a sensory level by the brain. This of course applies for the majority of society, but often a fundamental mistake is assumed. Society connects vision to beauty by assuming that you need to see something and process it to know it’s beautiful.
As a blind person, this primary perception is not there. However, you develop and tune your other existing senses to compensate, or better still, replace the perceptual job performed by having vision.
I consider myself a part-time artist, in that I write and perform my own music and sometimes I write poetry, short plays etc. In doing this, I try to convey to other people emotions or images most often through music. This is where the subjectivity kicks in, because someone might find a poem I write beautiful, and yet the next person reacts indifferently to it. So for me, music can illustrate beauty on many levels. A sad song can still be beautiful right? A nice minor key, sweeping guitar scales and haunting vocals added to this emotional power of lyrics, the perfect package? None of this package needs vision.
Click here to read an article about "Innocent Eyes," featured on the Washington Secretary of State Blog.
(Innocent Eyes continued and thoughts behind the project coming soon)
A few extra facts about visual impairment:
- Approximately 285 million people worldwide live with low vision and blindness
- Of these, 39 million people are blind and 246 million have moderate or severe visual impairment
- 90% of blind people live in low-income countries
- Yet 80% of visual impairment is avoidable - i.e. readily treatable and/or preventable
- Restorations of sight, and blindness prevention strategies are among the most cost-effective interventions in health care
- The number of people blind from infectious causes has greatly reduced in the past 20 years
- An estimated 19 million children are visually impaired