Beyond Sight (2007 - 2008)
Keywords: Advocacy, Blindness, Visual Impairment
Project Background
Funding Partners: Awards for All, The Epigoni Trust
Project Managers: Tiffany Fairey and Matt Daw
PhotoVoice Facilitators: Gina Badenoch, Geraldine Doart, Amy Scaife, Ben Roberts, Chloe Mathews, Suzie Rendell, Almudena Caso, David Kendall
Photography by blind and visually impaired people
In partnership with Sight of Emotion and Pocklington Resource Centre
AIM: To aid blind and visually impaired communities to create a dialogue with the seeing world, creating awareness and educating public audiences of the needs and experiences of the visually disabled.
“I’m convinced that a camera is a powerful tool for social interaction and that photography is a means of expression especially suited to anyone blind or partially sighted.”
Edward Slyfield, participant in Sight of Emotion workshops, London
Project photo gallery
Meet the Photographers
Go here to read more about the photographersFurther project info
Audio information 1 (MP3) - Beyond Sight
Audio information 2 (MP3) - The Mexico workshops
Audio information 3 (MP3) - The UK workshops
Audio information 4 (MP3) - The Sight of Emotion Process
There are 45 million blind people in the world and a further 120 million who live with visual impairments. In the UK alone there are 2 million people with a sight problem. However, there remains a lack of understanding of the disability and as a result, many blind people experience attitudes of social denigration, moral disapproval and avoidance. This UK project addresses this problem by using photography to draw attention to the experiences of the blind population, creating the opportunity for dialogue and understanding between blind and seeing communities.
Jane Sellers / Sight of Emotion / PhotoVoiceBeyond Sight is a project designed to celebrate blind photography. In May - June 2007 a series of eight participatory workshops facilitated by Gina Badenoch, founder of Mexican NGO Sight of Emotion, were held in London for 10 participants with visual impairments ranging from slightly impaired vision to complete blindness. Participants were taught to use their other senses to explore the environment, objects and people around them with a digital camera, and all of them produced work of a high standard of which they are rightfully very proud.
Workshops are now continuing with the same group on a monthly basis, supporting the photographers in their continued use of photography, reviewing and editing photos, and other personal projects.
The work created by the participants will be used to educate public audiences of the needs and experiences of the visually disabled and to promote dialogue and understanding between blind and seeing communities. This will be achieved through the production of an exhibition in December 2007, and a tie in with the wider Sight of Emotion project outcomes which include a book, a film, a website (www.sightofemotion.org) and a training manual.
Sight of Emotion is a project founded by Gina Badenoch who was trained by and worked with PhotoVoice in 2005. Sight of Emotion have pioneered the concept of participatory blind and visually impaired photography and have run a series of highly successful workshops in Mexico. Please see the links below for further details:
The Sight of Emotion Process
Participants learn to use senses other than sight to create images: hearing to judge distance, touch and smell to discover subjects. Once the photograph has been taken, textures and sounds will be used to achieve interpretation of the image. The idea is to demonstrate that although participants cannot see the photograph, they can feel and understand what they want to communicate through an image. They are able to share their world with the visual world, using their own sensorial perceptions. In discovering their abilities, participants gain a greater sense of self-esteem, inclusion, freedom of expression and independence. Learning photographic skills will give participants a new form of communication and a channel for self-advocacy – a new way of articulating their experiences, needs, hopes and concerns to the seeing world. Their photographs will enable them to challenge the stigma of their daily lives and raise consciousness about the needs of people with sight problems.