'The Blind' - Sophie Calle

Someone I was speaking to about my work recommended I look at 'The Blind' by French artist Sophie Calle. These works combine a photo of a blind person, a quote from them describing what they think is beauty or beautiful, and an image of that thing. There are many varied responses but I found this one the most poignant:

The passage reads: "Fish fascinates me, I can't say why. They don't make any noise. they are nothing. I don't really care about them. It's their evolution in the water that pleases me, the idea that they are not attached to anything. I sometimes find myself standing for minutes at one time in front of an aquarium. Standing like an imbecile. It's beautiful, that's all."

As I have been researching people's experiences of blindness, going blind and how to teach blind children, the mention of fish not being attached to anything really resonated with other things I have read about blind people not being free to move. In one video, Tommy Edison described that the best environment for him as a child was the beach because he could just run and run without having to worry about banging into anything. Blind people must always have some physial connection to their surroundings to feel their way around.

....Just as a side note, that made me think of my wax measuring spoons that I have been making and positioning around my studio space. I suddenly just thought of the hand rail in the care home for blind people in which I used to volunteer - it was at a similar kind of height, marking the space around the edge of the room. What a strange similarity. The wax spoons are so tactile as well.....

The idea of beauty for blind people is something that I have been thinking about since watching Tommy Edison's videos before Christmas. To read descriptions of beauty that are based on feelings or emotions is really interesting and involves the kind of beauty that I intend to mean a lot of the time....when something is beautiful emotionally, not necessarily aesthetically. When it means something, instead of looks a certain way.

I suppose there is also a poignancy and futility to this work too, for there is a realisation, after first taking in the images that the person has never and can never see what we are seeing so easily right now. The images and the text have a fascinating relationship in this sense, and lead the viewer through an experience that becomes the significance of the work in itself.

I have now researched more of Calle's work, having taken a rather large book about her from the library. Her use of narrative is compelling in every case and I will certainly be looking back to her when thinking about including more writing in my work.