1 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
In the hall of the Whitney museum for the Verbal Description and Touch Tour of the Biennial 2012. The tour allows the blind and visually impaired to experience art pieces using senses other than sight. New York, 2012
2 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Flowers can be hit and fall very easily; in some houses they're kept under transparent plastic bells. Apartment of Dale Layne, Brooklyn, NY, 2012
3 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Alexandra Hobbes, blind since the age of four because of domestic violence, listens to the television in the apartment where she lives with her husband Elijah Hobbes, albino and visually impaired. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_4.jpg]()
4 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Matthew Whitaker, a young blind drummer who is already known as a musician, takes the arm of a schoolmate during a music lesson at the Lighthouse International, center for the blind and visually impaired. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_5.jpg]()
5 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Gloria Turnblo, blind since 2010, poses during a class of photography for the blind at Visions center for the blind. The class is taught by Mark Andres, a sighted photographer. Students compose the frame and decide the position of the subject with the help of visual memory. New York, 2011
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_6.jpg]()
6 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Collin Watt, visually impaired, looks from a very short distance at a photo shot by Tim Hetherington, at the retrospective at the photographer at Yossi Milo Gallery. Before his death in April 2011, Tim Hetherington had been working on a project with the Milton Margai School for the Blind, Sierra Leone. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_8.jpg]()
7 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Alexandra Hobbes holds her daughter Destiny. Hobbes was blinded by domestic abuse at the age of four, and she grew up in a foster home. New York, 2013
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_9.jpg]()
8 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Collin Watt, visually impaired, climbs a rope in his backyard. He is a karate teacher for the visually impaired and works out daily. Queens, New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_10.jpg]()
9 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Collin Watt, visually impaired, is pictured sitting in a bar. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_11.jpg]()
10 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Verbal Description and Touch Tour of the Whitney Biennial 2012, where the blind and visually impaired can experience art pieces without seeing them. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_12.jpg]()
11 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Michael Faillace, a blind lawyer, swims daily in Asphalt Green, a swimming-pool in the Upper East Side. He says the contact with the water helps drain the stress of his job. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_13.jpg]()
12 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Fish are pictured in a bowl in the house of Collin Watt, a visually impaired man. Queens, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_14.jpg]()
13 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Visually impaired kids who didn't know each other beforehand dance at a party. Brooklyn, NY 2014
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_15.jpg]()
14 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Kitchen of the restaurant Dans le Noir, where blind waiters served the clients in a completely dark dining room.Blind waiters were employed to guide the experience and because they're able to find orientation in the dark. New York, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_16.jpg]()
15 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Students from the World Services for the Blind (WSB) sit before watching a movie inside a theater in Little Rock. Robert Brown (L), visually impaired, Dale Layne (C), blind, and Cynda Bellamy, a sighted recreation specialist at the IT school World Services for the Blind, were preparing to watch "Cloud Atlas". Little Rock, AR, 2013
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_17.jpg]()
16 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Danielle Corley plays in her room in East New York. Danielle is a sighted child growing up with blind parents. Dominique, her mother, was blinded at the age of 26 in a car crash. She says that "Danielle is still too young to understand blindness fully, but she knows that mom and dad can't see. Sometimes she waves her hand in front of my face to play. I know that because I can feel the air moving. Brooklyn, NY. 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_18.jpg]()
17 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Alexandra Hobbes and her husband Elijah are pictured during a visit at the Central Park Zoo. Alexandra Hobbes was blinded by domestic abuse at the age of four, and she grew up in a foster home. Elijah Hobbes is visually impaired because of albinism and works as a computer technician. New York, 2013
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_19.jpg]()
18 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Collin Watt ties a knot on a rope in his backyard in Jamaica, Queens, NY, 2012
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_20.jpg]()
19 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
Blind poet and publisher Steve Cannon is pictured in his office at The Gathering of the Tribes, art gallery and poetry space Cannon founded in 1991, that quickly became a landmark of the New York East Village. New York, 2014
![Photography image - Loading brokenscreen_21.jpg]()
20 of 20
© 2020 Gaia Squarci
A TV is photographed in Dale Layne's apartment. Brooklyn, NY, 2012
Public Story
Broken Screen
Credits:
gaia squarci
Updated: 01/29/16
“When you’re losing sight, the world starts to appear fragmented, like through a broken screen. Then you stop understanding where light comes from.” Dale Layne
The blind live in a sighted world. They function in a system constructed on the rules of seeing. Many of them could once see, but after going blind they were forced to reinvent themselves, and their quality of life became deeply affected by disability law, support in the private sphere, and the level of awareness in the society around them. I asked them to guide me into their lives. I’m interested in the disconnect between the concept of blindness as a metaphor and its reality. Stripped of its mysterious aura, the blindness of daily life, the one that’s not heard of in the words of a song, often turns out to be disquieting, and kept at a distance.This project has become a way for me to explore our universal needs. I imagine myself in the position of someone who turned blind, forced to reinvent my relationship to the world after years of a sighted life. When filtered through blindness, the core questions of identity, love and independence feel to me even more resonant.
