*more photos to follow*

Hope is your Superpower, 2024  

Braille and acrylic paint on canvas 

Sophie Calle, a French artist, published “Blind” in 2011, where she highlights the personal yet moving stories of those who have been blind since birth or underwent an accident resulting in the loss of their sight. 

Oliver Sacks “An Anthropologist on Mars” published in 1995 shares the story of Virgil, who has been blind for nearly his entire life but regains his sight after undergoing many tests and surgeries. 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. 

In my final project “Hope is Your Superpower” is spelled out in Braille, in an expansive landscape direction, using the risen symbols to invite the blind community to experience and trace each form. A cloudy transition into a bright sky takes up the surface of the canvas, made with Acrylic paint and brushed out with my fingertips. Several quotes from Sophie Calle’s “Blind” and Oliver Sacks “An Anthropologist on Mars” scatter across the main canvas, blurred slightly in the sky and clouds. I chose the specific quotes to help my audience as a whole understand the meaning of the work, and what the braille represents.