Hope Is Your Superpower

Victoria Forrest, Inspired by Oliver Sacks 

 Inspired by Virgil’s story in Oliver Sacks’ book “An Anthropologist on Mars”, specifically in the section titled “To see and Not See”, I would like to create an artwork for the blind community. Virgil has been blind for nearly his entire life but regains his sight after undergoing many tests and surgeries. What makes Virgil’s case so unique and intriguing is the profound complexity of what it means to see, both physically and mentally. His experience challenges the notion that once someone’s eyes are working, they can understand and navigate the visual world right away. Unfortunately, Virgil’s brain never completely adjusted to processing information so that he could move around the environment and his community with ease. He ultimately stopped attempting to utilize his vision and turned back to using his other senses, particularly touch, which has always been his main method of connecting with the outside world. This emphasizes even more how vision, as a perceptual experience, encompasses more than similitude the capacity for physical sight. What inspired me most about Virgil’s story is how before he endured the life changing surgery, he created a life for himself despite his setbacks. He worked at a Y.M.C.A helping patients with massage therapy. He had a social life with many friends, loved listening to the sports games on the radio, and learned to read using Braille which he studied in his early education as a blind person. My biggest takeaway from this specific section of the book is that Virgil relied on hope to undergo the process of regaining his vision, and did this through the investigation of the human ability to endure and discover purpose in the face of overwhelming adversity. After surgery, he aspires for a life of ease and clarity post-surgery, however he suffers overwhelming bewilderment as his brain tries to absorb visual inputs. The subject of hope is not in the mere act of seeing, but in Virgil’s ongoing attempts to understand and adapt to his new world. Despite his setbacks, his will to persevere through this transition reflects the form of hope as a superpower- hope as the inner fortitude, and the weapon to confront disillusionment. 

For our second project “Different, Not Less” I think making a work specifically for the blind will not only help me understand Virgil’s story more and the many people like himself, but serve as an inspiration for those who can not see. What made Oliver Sacks an amazing neurologist isn’t only because of his education, or his studies of science and history but because he really listened to people. I will spell out “Hope is Your Superpower” in Braille, in an expansive landscape direction, using the risen symbols to invite the blind community to experience and trace each form. I plan on using black and white, mostly because it is not to see, but to touch and experience. I’m using styrofoam balls, cut evenly in half, the flat side resting against the canvas, with the other circular half facing up for the viewer to feel.