In 1886, a 22-year-old woman in Lyon saw the world around her for the first time. Objects instantly recognisable by touch were hard to distinguish with her new sight, and shadows appeared more concrete than solid forms. Her doctors described the sudden strangeness of familiar environments, and her singular experience of the world as a newly sighted person.
In his 1932 book Space and Sight, Marius Von Senden collated the patient’s experiences alongside testimonies of similar cases dating from 1020 to the present. These captivating accounts, which later inspired writers including Maggie Nelson and Annie Dillard, express how something familiar can show a previously unacknowledged beauty when seen in a new way.
‘She sees the shadows… she even counts the tree-trunks along a promenade by the shadows, but sees nothing of the shape of things.’
M. Von Senden (trans. P. Heath), Space and Sight: the perception of space and shape in the congenitally blind before and after operation, 1932, Methuen & Co. Ltd.: London, 1960.
She sees the shadows is a group exhibition of works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. The exhibition is created in collaboration with MOSTYN, Wales’ foremost contemporary gallery and visual arts centre. Based on the testimonies of congenitally blind people who came to be sighted, the exhibition explores the strange experience of familiar environments and objects. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Orit Gat, Claire Potter and Sally O’Reilly and artists David Birkin, Jason Dodge, Marine Hugonnier, Marlie Mul, Magali Reus and Douglas White available with the link below.
