EVERYTHING NEAR BECOMES DISTANT
Imagine losing not just your sight, but the very memory of it.
That's a different kind of blindness.
These digital images of blurred forms and abstract traces, bring back the indistinct landscapes of colour and light I see in my mind when I try to recall more positive moments in the past. They are an insight on individual identity and the fragmentary nature of visual memory and how this links those of us with sight loss.
It’s seldom talked about, but many who lose their sight later in life experience the loss of their ‘visual library’ in the minds. Over time, images of family, friends, places and landscapes can fade until they’re almost impossible to remember, leaving only faint traces of colours and light. It’s a cruel twist on the initial trauma of losing sight.
“Everything near becomes distant” is a translation of a line, “Alles nahe werde fern” attributed to Johann Goethe. It refers to the experience of twilight, expressing how at nightfall even the things closest to us seem to recede into darkness. It is also used as a reflection on the transience of life, relationships, and experiences. Often cited as an expression of solitude and the inevitability of distance or loss, whether through old age, blindness, or the passage of time.
My own visual memories are getting harder to picture. I used to be able to close my eyes and see houses I grew up in, where I used to play, holiday spots and locations further afield when I travelled and family members who are now gone.
Blind and severely sight impaired people can still have visual memories, but without ongoing visual input around those memories to reinforce them, they tend to fade over time. While the vividness of early memories may fade, the emotional and narrative elements can often persist. Drawing on non-visual cues like sounds and smells can help access memories from early life.
You imagine your mind keeps photographs tucked away. But when they are not refreshed by sight, they become less clear. For example, I know my father had a kind face, but it has blurred so much that I no longer remember how he looked. When I try to remember my childhood and early adult years, it is not what I see, but the feeling of light. It is becoming harder to hold onto early images. I remember the stories and feelings, but the visual details are slipping away.
During my research I posted questions to online Blind and Visually Impaired community groups, the responses I received spoke of how traumatic it can be and of the difficulty of coming to terms with this aspect of sight loss.
The images you see in this exhibition were physically uncomfortable for me to recreate. My sight continues to deteriorate, my sensitivity to light increases and the clarity of my visible world continues to move away from me.
Do I miss how things looked? Missing is too small a word for it. It is more like mourning. You do not get over it, you learn to sit with it. Can I preserve something of myself by making these works? Maybe not pictures, but feelings came to the surface as I created them, and that means the memories and stories existed.