BlindSight

‘Without darkness the light can not know itself’ - Glenn de Rademie - BlindSight is the journey in the discovery of attempting to make the loss of sight visible. The world of the blind is unknown and unimaginable for people with normal vision. The project is a tangible journey of a visible exploration of the diminishment of sight, visualised by an innovative interactive installation which guides people in a new perception of seeing. In this series I portray people with visual impairments and became slowly blind. They know what it is like to be able to see and have gone through the process of losing their sight. Each person has his or her own story and it feels inspiring to experience how they have found their own way in their new world of touch, sounds and smells. A path I will follow, on my own, sooner than I thought it would be. I saw and in the mean time I didn’t see. At age 16 I had to deal with an assortment of complications with my eye. Being hypersensitive to light and having some damaged spots in my eye I experienced my vision slowly blurred away and lost my sight. During exams in the hospital I felt dependent. I could only rely on the sight of my brother who sat next to me in the waiting room. Last November I went back to the hospital and the progression of growing and finding new spots let my fear grow. Working on this project is like looking closer to the future as a visual impaired. The vulnerability of not being able to see and the dependence without sight aroused my curiosity as an photographer to explore other forms of perception through sound, smell and touch. The experience of the vision changes along with the experience in discovering new observations have been my inspiration to a quest in innovative photographic art forms with a translation to the new perception of visual images. By experimenting this journey, designed by interactive multimedia installations like lightboxes, film and VR, you will get to know the world of the blind.