Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Meeting the visually impaired community
I have been in Dunedin just over a month and in that time have met and interviewed about twenty people who are either completely blind or visually impaired. It has been a fascinating journey of discovery and I'm very grateful to those people for being so open and generous about their lives. Some of these people have been blind or sight impaired from birth whereas others are in a more liminal space where their sight is gradually deteriorating. One man became completely blind from an accident and another woman has lost her peripheral vision from a brain injury caused by an accident. The ages range from early twenties to 70 so far.
Rather than being interested in their sight impairments from a diagnostic perspective I am more interested in them as people and how their visual condition shapes their experiences and outlook on the world. To say it is a 'loss' supports the assumption that to be fully sighted is the norm and also the ideal. Such a mainstream assumption also reflects the idea that there is a perfect body and physical and mental deviations are defined according to that standard. It privileges a very narrow range of experience and this is something that perhaps this project could address. As one visually impaired friend said "You see what you see" regardless of other's experience.
Speaking to this group of people it is clear that they are incredibly adaptable and creative as they negotiate a world designed for fully sighted people. They live productive lives, have jobs and families although some people mentioned difficulties in been taken seriously by employers. Some expressed a sense of vulnerability as their degree of sight lessened. One person, who was blind from birth, mentioned she was uncomfortable with people looking at her when she was unable to see them.
It could be interesting to question the 'certainty' fully sighted people feel about what they see. In 1990, French philosopher, Derrida, curated an exhibition of drawings and paintings for the Louvre called,Les Memoires d'Aveugles, (Memories of the Blind), where he examined the blinding effect of reflection, the reflection which dazzles and petrifies. He argued that the artist is blind, the object of attention always invisible, only invoked by memory. He said that he, as artist, cannot see what memory makes him blind to and this blindness becomes the frame for the art. What I think he was getting at (and I could be completely wrong about this) is what contextualises the image or subject, i.e the frame, is invisible. And it is the frame that constructs the meaning of the subject. He was refering to his own blindness, metaphorical and literal.
So how can all this philosophising be applied to my project? What relevance does it have? Well perhaps it is possible to draw attention to the idea that, rather than blindness, the absence of seeing, we all interpret the world (sighted or unsighted) through a series of filters, a unique perspective made up of our own experiences and associations with our environment. We see what we see - and this is often layer upon layer of unquestioned assumptions and responses. Sight impairment requires a level of engagement with the world that is more defined by the senses of touch and sound. Helen Keller once made a remark that sighted people miss so much because they don't have the same kinaesthetic direct contact with the world as blind people.
My intention is that the House of Memories, will focus on the aural and kinasethetic, revealing aspects that may not otherwise be 'seen' or experienced.
Rather than being interested in their sight impairments from a diagnostic perspective I am more interested in them as people and how their visual condition shapes their experiences and outlook on the world. To say it is a 'loss' supports the assumption that to be fully sighted is the norm and also the ideal. Such a mainstream assumption also reflects the idea that there is a perfect body and physical and mental deviations are defined according to that standard. It privileges a very narrow range of experience and this is something that perhaps this project could address. As one visually impaired friend said "You see what you see" regardless of other's experience.
Speaking to this group of people it is clear that they are incredibly adaptable and creative as they negotiate a world designed for fully sighted people. They live productive lives, have jobs and families although some people mentioned difficulties in been taken seriously by employers. Some expressed a sense of vulnerability as their degree of sight lessened. One person, who was blind from birth, mentioned she was uncomfortable with people looking at her when she was unable to see them.
It could be interesting to question the 'certainty' fully sighted people feel about what they see. In 1990, French philosopher, Derrida, curated an exhibition of drawings and paintings for the Louvre called,Les Memoires d'Aveugles, (Memories of the Blind), where he examined the blinding effect of reflection, the reflection which dazzles and petrifies. He argued that the artist is blind, the object of attention always invisible, only invoked by memory. He said that he, as artist, cannot see what memory makes him blind to and this blindness becomes the frame for the art. What I think he was getting at (and I could be completely wrong about this) is what contextualises the image or subject, i.e the frame, is invisible. And it is the frame that constructs the meaning of the subject. He was refering to his own blindness, metaphorical and literal.
So how can all this philosophising be applied to my project? What relevance does it have? Well perhaps it is possible to draw attention to the idea that, rather than blindness, the absence of seeing, we all interpret the world (sighted or unsighted) through a series of filters, a unique perspective made up of our own experiences and associations with our environment. We see what we see - and this is often layer upon layer of unquestioned assumptions and responses. Sight impairment requires a level of engagement with the world that is more defined by the senses of touch and sound. Helen Keller once made a remark that sighted people miss so much because they don't have the same kinaesthetic direct contact with the world as blind people.
My intention is that the House of Memories, will focus on the aural and kinasethetic, revealing aspects that may not otherwise be 'seen' or experienced.
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