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CLOSE YOUR EYES TO SEE
Marco Antonio Martinez is a Mexican photographer who has exhibited in galleries around the world. One project visualizes a dream he had, which he created by moulding small sculptures with clay and aluminium and building scenes. One photograph shows a red tunnel scattered with small beetle-like creatures, drifting into an abyss. They cast eerie shadows, creating a surreal and beautiful dreamscape. Another photo in the series has softly glowing trees across a dark background with their delicate light trails. In another, a proud shining Pegasus appears in a spot of light in the darkness.
In a video presentation of the photo project, Marco Antonio describes the Pegasus as a strong and free creature. He remembers that in the dream the Pegasus transmits these feelings to him, a liberation after the claustrophobia of the abyss in the first photo in the essay. The dream suddenly ends in a flash of red light.
These photos are beautiful and haunting; they are also extraordinary because Marco Antonio is blind. And the dream he describes through his photos occurred only seven days after he suddenly became blind. This story can give us an insight into the internal experience of blindness in a way that no rational description can.
Before his blindness Marco Antonio almost never used a camera and like most people, he only took casual pictures, such as family photos at parties. He hadn’t been interested in art photography at all.
“When you become blind you feel somehow lost,” he says. “Life forces you to solve new problems or concerns that you never even dreamt of before. This is very frustrating. Inevitably you have to learn alternatives, tools and new skills. It forces you to explore at all times, to make you more aware of your space and yourself. You acknowledge that learning by trial and error is part of the process.”
Through the techniques of sensory photography, together with his previous visual references, Marco Antonio learned how to create images. “Imagining my environment is essential for me to feel and understand where I am. Now I imagine constantly, which enables me to expand my reality, one where I build and design all the time.”
Marco Antonio learned photography at “Ojos Que Sienten” or “Sight of Emotion,” a social organization in Mexico City. It is an ambitious project to teach photography to blind people and change the mainstream’s perception towards people with visual impairments. The organization has worked with over 1,000 young people in Mexico and also runs projects globally.
The photography process pioneered at “Sight of Emotion” involves visually impaired people using all their senses to create a road map in order to produce an image. Sound is a reference for the photographers to know where the subject matter is and also to identify distances and heights. To frame the photo, they open their arms at an angle of 75° to 80° because that is the angle of view of point-and-shoot digital cameras. Using touch, they can gather additional information, such as the texture of the object, and the length and type of hair of their subjects, for example. For street photography, smell is also an important reference point for what is going on around the photographer.
The project was started by Mexican photographer Gina Bad-enoch: “When walking into the unknown, the worst thing you can do is to hold on to your ego wanting to control what you cannot control,” Gina comments. Through her work she asks participants to accept their present situation, identify and accept what they do not have, but instead focus on what they still do have, and acknowledge ways in which working with others can complement their present weaknesses.
For most photographers the output, the photographic print, is the whole point of photography. But for visually impaired people, the point is the process itself and the printed photo is for others to appreciate. The photographers immerse themselves and appreciate the whole process of taking a photo, as well as the intense satisfaction they can receive from someone else loving it.
Gina reflects: “Throughout the years I have witnessed a lot of stories that have been told around the world through photographs taken with all the other senses by blind people. I have also seen lives transformed because people who had become invisible were now not only being included, but enhancing our visual world.”
In a business context, relying on a certain kind of market information from a certain source may limit the weight we give to other sources of information, and blind us from the value of other, seemingly less important, sources or senses.
Steven: I was once in Innsbruck, Austria, with a friend and went to Discover your Senses, a city experience in complete darkness. After paying for our tickets, we were led to a waiting area where we were blindfolded and introduced to our guides. With a hand holding me under the elbow, I was guided as I stepped forward through doors. No light could be sensed through the blindfold – nothing to provide a sense of orientation. I felt scared and exhilarated at the same time.
As I walked my hand reached out in front of me involuntarily, feeling my way, trying to avoid hitting something and hurting myself. Progress was slow as I took tentative steps forward, cautiously trying to sense where I was. As I became more comfortable with not seeing, my other senses kicked in. I became aware of the soft ground beneath me, cushioning my steps. I smelled freshly cut grass, then a subtle smell of flowers drifted past me, with the breeze. Was I in a field? I could hear the soft murmurs of a river and the sound grew stronger as I edged nearer. I listened intently, and felt a heightened awareness of my movements.
My guide’s hand would gently beckon me forward if I stopped or hesitated. The guides’ banter in the background created a reassuring feeling. Over the course of the next hour we went over a bridge, crossed a busy street where I could hear the terrifying sounds of the traffic, walked past a busy marketplace and a church ringing its bells, then arrived at what seemed to be our final destination – a restaurant where we would order, eat and even pay in the dark. Without sight to guide my meal, I slowed down and savoured every mouthful. The sense of smell became alive and my tongue felt the nuance in textures as if for the first time, while my hands would frequently touch the plate, to make sure it was still there!
At the end of the meal we were led through a door into the exit where we were finally able to remove our blindfolds. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light again, I was shocked to realize that the guides that had taken us around so expertly were blind. Although this experience was over a decade ago, it remains fresh and vivid to this day.
Following the selective blindness approach, we might deliberately turn off some sources of information to learn more from surprising sources, where our direct experience comes into play. For example, we might look at our new employees as a source of information, rather than go to the usual trusted sources.
Closing the eyes in order to see is a way of shutting off some knowledge, deliberately Not Knowing from an important source, to open up a new knowing in a place we haven’t been before. Paradoxically, this shutting down creates new knowledge. That is one secret to Not Knowing – far from reducing knowledge, the process is generative, creating knowledge in new ways that unlocks tough challenges that the old knowledge couldn’t address.