I have always had a deep embedded fear of going blind or loosing my eyes. I think this stems from when we were kids and Fonzie would torture me in the basement by pretending to be a samurai and whipping around a sword that my parents bought on some Mexican vacation.
Apart from that, being blind, in my opinion is one of the most difficult states.
When I was living in Milan, I encountered this man one night after work. He was blind and using his walking stick. He was having a very difficult time navigating all of the scooters that people illegally parked on the very narrow Milan sidewalks. I as
ked him if he needed a hand, and he told me he was trying to find the subway. The subway was no where near where I worked, it was like 10 minutes away, and you had to cross two major streets (with Italian drivers in the cars).
I offered to take him there and we talked about all kinds of things including my fear of blindness.
He told me about an exhibit that the Italian Institute for the blind had created in Milan, where you enter and you are led in 100% darkness through all of these different scenarios…. A bar, the grocery store, a kitchen.
I still haven’t checked it out, because I left Milan one week after. But I think in two weeks I will go there on a special mission just to experience it.
Close your eyes and take a walk was a piece I created a few years back. It basically asks all of the participants within a gallery space to put on a blindfold and navigate the space. I was trying to talk about the vulnerability we feel when walking blindly. Kids understand this. I used to walk around my house all the time with my eyes closed. Trying to go down the stairs, or make my way through the living room. It is incredible how slow we move when we can’t see.
Right now I am working on another piece to the same effect. It was my first time in Florence, about 8 months ago. Lorenzo took me to the photography museum, where they had a guidebook of the museum for sale. Apart from the pages written in Braille there was also embossed pictures representing some of the works and an embossed map that you could follow.
For some reason this changed my life. I never even thought about how blind people would approach visual art appreciation. I am sure that modernism is a little boring for them.
Apart from that, being blind, in my opinion is one of the most difficult states.
When I was living in Milan, I encountered this man one night after work. He was blind and using his walking stick. He was having a very difficult time navigating all of the scooters that people illegally parked on the very narrow Milan sidewalks. I as
ked him if he needed a hand, and he told me he was trying to find the subway. The subway was no where near where I worked, it was like 10 minutes away, and you had to cross two major streets (with Italian drivers in the cars).I offered to take him there and we talked about all kinds of things including my fear of blindness.
He told me about an exhibit that the Italian Institute for the blind had created in Milan, where you enter and you are led in 100% darkness through all of these different scenarios…. A bar, the grocery store, a kitchen.
I still haven’t checked it out, because I left Milan one week after. But I think in two weeks I will go there on a special mission just to experience it.
Close your eyes and take a walk was a piece I created a few years back. It basically asks all of the participants within a gallery space to put on a blindfold and navigate the space. I was trying to talk about the vulnerability we feel when walking blindly. Kids understand this. I used to walk around my house all the time with my eyes closed. Trying to go down the stairs, or make my way through the living room. It is incredible how slow we move when we can’t see.
Right now I am working on another piece to the same effect. It was my first time in Florence, about 8 months ago. Lorenzo took me to the photography museum, where they had a guidebook of the museum for sale. Apart from the pages written in Braille there was also embossed pictures representing some of the works and an embossed map that you could follow.
For some reason this changed my life. I never even thought about how blind people would approach visual art appreciation. I am sure that modernism is a little boring for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment