Brazil: Pioneer school in Espírito Santo will train 12 blind photographers

It begins today (25) at Instituto Luiz Braille do Espírito Santo, in Vitória (ES), a photography course for blind people. The biggest name in photography made by people with visual impairments in Brazil and twice official photographer of the Paralympic Games, João Maia considers the project valid, which will train 12 photographers at once.

Most of the 12 blind people who will participate in the experience are singing and theater students from the Cena Diversa project, from the collective Companhia Poéticas da Cena Contemporânea, which works with cinema, theater, photography, and video.

The project was conceived and proposed by Rejane Arruda, president of Associação Sociedade Cultura e Arte (SOCA Brasil) and director of the collective and the School of Blind Photographers (EFC). ES Gás sponsor the project through the Capixaba Culture Incentive Law.

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The course will last eight months and include eight photography teaching modules, with workshops, classes, debates, and immersion of participants in capturing images. “Our goal is to transmit the look and poetics of contemporary photography to them.

We bet on this transmission of a visual poetics for these people who have never seen images”, said Rejane. Classes will be held on Thursdays and Fridays, accompanied by a team of four photographers.

There will be many descriptions and practical procedures in which elements such as touch, living in space, and metaphors, will be used to transmit these poetics to students, “to the point that, at the end of eight months, they become autonomous and manage to build the devices themselves for the photographic experience”, explained Rejane.

INCLUSION

SOCA Brasil has been working with inclusion since 2019. Rejane commented that the 12 people selected had never thought about doing photography before, let alone becoming photographers. “The idea is to train 12 blind photographers.

It is that they perceive what operates a poetics of the image through photographic writing and the devices themselves so that, at the end of the course, they have autonomy. They realize that each can have a style as the author of a work.

The goal is the image as a work. Not instrumental photography, but art photography. We bet that they are good contributors, good artists, precisely because they can’t see.

This is the hypothesis of the project. Because they can’t see, they photograph better than we do. They have unpredictability in their eyes. This generates good products, pleasing aesthetics”, said the president of SOCA Brasil.

During the course, the 12 students will receive a scholarship in the amount of R$360 per month, granted by ES Gás. Future photographers will travel through urban spaces where they live, frequent, and circulate to work with the city.

“The city will be clicked in the students’ daily lives”, informed Rejane Arruda. Curator Bárbara Bragato will select 32 photographs from the entire product made throughout the course to print cubic structures spread across Parque do Moscoso in Vitória.

The title When I close my eyes, I see closer that the exhibition will be open to the public for a year, starting in June 2023.

REFERENCE

A national reference in photography for the visually impaired, João Maia will participate in a chat with future photographers on a date to be scheduled.

In an interview with Agência Brasil, Maia reiterated the validity of the School of Blind Photographers “because knowledge has to be shared. If you have a methodology that adds knowledge, it is essential for people with disabilities”.

Currently, João Maia gives photography workshops to people with and without disabilities, including abroad. “We have to democratize photography”. He recalled that today, ‘smartphones’ have accessibility, and cell phone cameras are much more accessible than professional ones. “So, we work there with a lot of autonomy”.

This does not mean, however, that a visually impaired person cannot operate professional equipment.

He considered actions such as that of the School of Blind Photographers of SOCA Brasil “significant”. João Maia is currently completing a postgraduate degree in photography.

“I think I can be in any space”. For him, it is up to the teacher to break paradigms and adapt to the needs of any student with visual impairment.

“Actions that bring knowledge to people with disabilities are always valid, experience, if someone wants to invest more in their training, taking a technical course, bachelor’s or postgraduate, this student with a disability should be comfortable, because there are no barriers.”

“If I worry about this barrier, I won’t grow professionally. Today, I don’t stop studying because knowledge is what will differentiate me from anyone else, with or without a disability”.

EMOTION

João Maia sees colors through his left eye. Up to 15 centimeters, he can perceive what is in front of him, although without format. However, the further away he goes, the more he loses the definition of what is there.

When he travels to cover a Paralympics, as in the 2020 edition in Japan, held in 2021, Maia always takes an assistant to guide him and describe the environment. But the entire conception of the image and what he wants to convey in terms of emotion is his sole responsibility. “I am responsible for this.”

The emotion and the sound, the communication between the athletes and the teams, are transformed by Maia into images, as happened in the 5-a-side soccer final at the Tokyo Paralympics between Brazil and Argentina.

“My photography is very resonant, and I try to translate all that emotion into my images. I am happy when we have actions that allow people with disabilities to get out of their comfort zone.”

“Nothing prevents a visually impaired person from photographing for leisure or even being a professional photographer. I was thrilled to know that my work is a reference in the country and abroad. Today, I am a photographer specializing in Paralympic sports. That’s my differentiator”.

In João Maia’s opinion, photography is nothing more than emotion. “It’s memory; it’s something that brings you feelings. It’s using the other senses that are so keen, like hearing, touch, smell, and taste. That’s what photography is,” he stated.

João Maia is considered a reference in the list of blind photographers, which also includes, among other names, the Slovenian naturalized Frenchman Evgen Bavcar, professor of Aesthetics at the University of Sorbonne and who has already exhibited in several museums around the world; and the American Pete Eckert, who did work for Volkswagen and Playboy, in addition to the authorship that made him internationally recognized with his light paintings (physiograms).

With information from Agência Brasil