Layers of Vision - Living in a world made for sighted people, an exhibition of work by 10 blind and partially sighted artists at King’s College, Bush House, The Strand, London from Monday 21 November to Friday 16 December 2022.

Layers of Vision explores the experiences and perspectives of blind and partially sighted artists living in a world made for sighted people. In meaningfully co-created and joyful ways, Layers of Vision raises attention to, and challenges, the barriers that people who are blind or have sight loss are facing in everyday life. It does so by exhibiting ten artworks that celebrate and creatively explore accessibility. Each artwork, in its own way, appreciates different forms of vision and features multi-sensory elements.

The exhibition displays commissioned works by Aaron McPeake, Alice Christina-Corrigan, Bianca Raffaella, Clarke Reynolds, David Johnson, Fae Kilburn, Mickel aka Ebony Rose Dark, Natalie Doig, Sally Booth, and Zoe Partington.

RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with two of the main people behind Layers of Vision, Dr Katharina Husemann from King's Business School and Zoe Partington, one of the exhibiting artists who also played an important role in the curation of the exhibition.

Katharina began by telling Toby about the background to the exhibition and how it came out of research into the accessibility of marketing for visually impaired people, the idea behind the exhibition along with a run down of the 10 artists exhibiting in Layers of Vision.

Zoe talked about her involvement in Layers of Vision and why it is so important for work by blind and partially sighted people to be on display in not only exhibitions like Layers of Vision but in museums and galleries generally to change the general publics perceptions around art by disabled artists. 

Katharina then focused on a couple of examples of work on display in the exhibition, Blind Braille Artist Clarke Reynolds ‘Fab to Touch,' a large piece of work which is very much in the Pop Art style with colourful Braille that can be touched and Bianca Raffaella’s ‘In the Rose Garden’ work showing a rose bush from the perspective and view point of both just her left eye and jus her right eye.  

Zoe then talked about  ‘Decoding Difference', an installation of sound, lights and digital processing that represents the connection between the chronic condition Zoe has which caused her sight loss, showing the constantly changing data of her glucose blood sugar level readings.

To find out more about ‘Layers of Vision’ do visit the exhibition’s website-

https://layersofvision.org

(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)