Artist Statement

Imagine living and functioning in modern society without the ability to either see or hear. This is the world of people who are deafblind. Persons with this disability experience extreme isolation and are often unable to access services and information that most of us take for granted.

For the past ten years, I have photographed individuals who are deafblind at different stages of their lives with different degrees of deafblindness. I have photographed people who have been deafblind from birth and those who have become deafblind later in life. The result is the body of work -Perceptions of Light- is an exploration of language, communication and their everyday realities, specifically those moments of humanity that connect us all.

Perceptions of Light started in 1996, as my thesis work while attending the Image Arts program at Ryerson Polytechnic University. The inspiration for this project comes from my own search for nonverbal languages as a means of expression and the meeting of two deafblind residents at the Bob Rumble Centre for the Deaf in Toronto in the beginning days of the project. Their strengths, positive outlook and independence in spite of their disability touched me deeply and inspired me to search and explore their world.

In 2003, I produced the book titled Perceptions of Light – Canada, an intimate photographic portrait of individuals who are deafblind across Canada. Sponsored by the Canadian Deafblind Rubella Association with the financial support of the Trillium Foundation.  The book was given to 850 delegates from around the globe at the 13th Deafblind International World Conference held in Mississauga, Ontario that year.

The Perceptions of Light exhibition work (last shown at the Festival in Den Bosch, Netherlands- August 2007) consists of thirty-two 20”x24” b/w documentary images of individuals who are deafblind from Canada, Nepal, France, Israel, and the Netherlands, as well as Legally Blind, a group of five 40”x40” giclée prints on stretched-canvas panels that explore the different degrees of blindness experienced by deafblind individuals.

Presently, I am to begin the third and final aspect of Perceptions of Light: Legally Deafblind- an immersive environment of three installations that explore the inner landscapes, experiences and sensation of movements and touch as perceived by deafblind individuals.  It is an exploration of the person beyond their disability. Although the reality of someone who is deafblind can never be reproduced, this installation is a sensory experience of what it may be like if one were deafblind. The installation work will include animation, video, sound, and tactile elements that convey the reality faced by individuals who are deafblind.

The creation of Legally Blind and Legally Deafblind come out of the questions I have always been asked when showing the photographic aspect of the work: “Are they completely deaf and completely blind?”  No, in fact they are not, only a minority within the deafblind community is completely deaf and completely blind. It is through questions like these that I have come to understand the need for a more detailed body of work that targets the misunderstanding and misinformation that exist in the general community. This common but incorrect perception leads to many false assumptions about the everyday world of people who are legally deafblind, and in the way the community at large interacts with them.

In showcasing a wide range of mediums, this project explores the senses and their relationship to memory and existence, a journey of discovery into the individual lives of deafblind persons, as well as a chronicle of their different sensory experiences, struggles and interactions with one another.   It is also an opportunity for people without sensory disabilities to explore and physically experience some of the challenges of being deafblind, a dual sensory disability.

The intention behind Legally Deafblind is to make the deafblind world accessible to the community at large in a way that can be experiential and intimate. This project brings out the person beyond the disability in order to promote a greater sense of respect and value for their lives, and to explore our own individual dependency to our senses.

Artistically, the different mediums present different layers of understanding and experience on the viewer’s mind that will become more and more powerful as one builds onto the next. Perceptions of Light is in itself a journey into our own internal landscape. It begins by taking a look at the lives of deafblind individuals in their own environment, although distant and separate from ours, the human quality of the documentary work creates a connection between the work itself and the viewer (photographic work). Gradually the journey becomes more and more the inner journey of the viewer, as we learn more about the disability and the self beyond it (Legally Blind, Legally Deafblind). Because of the experiential level of Legally Deafblind the work becomes personal, it is about the person involved in the experience and involved in the challenge of understanding our own dependencies on our senses and what the lack of existence of one or more of them might mean to the way we live and interact with the world around us.

Perceptions of Light is not only about deafblindness, or disabilities, or photography, or art.  It is about challenging people’s perceptions of one another, and inspiring action through different approaches to education. It is about bringing sensitivity into people’s lives; about re-connecting with our human selves – and transcending the boundaries imposed by our bodies, our senses, our nationalities and our religious differences. It is about our shared humanity.

My passion as a photographer is social documentary work, my goals have always been to be able to raise awareness about a specific subject matter and I now find myself driven towards seeking a combination of mediums that will have a more powerful effect on the audience in promoting change in our community. Raising awareness is the first step, but meaningful changes will only happen if there is an internal connection to the exposed subject matter.

Perceptions of Light and the theme of deafblindness have been an internal journey of discovery for me and a gateway into exploring the world of the senses.