Focusing on the theme of “Main Street: a Crossroad of Cultures,” the exhibition, curated by Jerome De Perlinghi and co-curated by Catherine Coulter Lloyd and Régina Monfort, features the work of 100 photographers from 31 countries with an equal number of men and women. Among the artists included in this years’ edition are: the late Marc Riboud, Olivia Arthur, Linda Bournane-Engelberth, Omar Havana, James Nachtwey, Martin Parr, Eugene Richards, Gaia Squarci and Jo Ann Walters.
Gaia SquarciBroken ScreenWhen you’re losing sight, the world starts to appear fragmented, like through a broken screen. Then you stop understanding where light comes from.” Dale LayneThe blind liv…
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
Gaia Squarci has chosen to explore a subject that corresponds to the essence of photography: light and the shapes that it makes, ubiquitous to the point that it makes our interactions with the world a primarily visual experience. By documenting the lives of the visually impaired, most as a result of an accident, Gaia Squarci communicates emotions, giving them a materiality. In her highly rigorous compositions, she destigmatizes the disability and offers in its place a tale of everyday life.
A blind man helped Gaia Squarci find the heart of her photography project documenting the lives of the sightless and visually impaired. Dale Layne was describing to her the onset of blindness, which he said was like seeing the world on a broken screen that fragments, then eventually obliterates, reality.
