The Blind, 1988
Over a period of ten years, Jane Evelyn Atwood entered the blind schools of France, Australia, Israel, Japan and the United States. The photographer, fascinated by the visual, has a passion for young blind people who can’t see. She wanted to return their development in a sighted world. Jane Evelyn Atwood has succeeded in creating poignant black and white portraits as she met the blinds around the world. She received the W. Eugene Smith Award for this project initiated in the 1980’s.
“The idea of photographing the blind came to me as a very personal curiosity for people who do not see, and yet must live in a sighted world. I wanted to know what that meant exactly, not to see, and how these people who do not see were coping. I have often been struck in the streets of Paris by how people had a perceptive look at the blind, with condescension, pity, horror, and even fear. I also noticed that the sighted often speak to the blind with a kind of contempt, as if they were idiots. Or they do not talk to them at all, as if being blind made them invisible.” Jane Evelyn Atwood
—
Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
—
