Blind Self-Portrait brings together portraits of blind people from different regions of Chile, made with a large-format analog camera and natural light. In each session, the person being portrayed triggered the lens shutter using a cable release, taking a direct part in the making of their own image.
The project does not attempt to show how a blind person “sees,” nor to translate blindness into a visual experience. Rather, it begins with a question about photography itself and its dependence on vision: what does it mean to make and receive images when seeing is not the way one relates to them?
Over time, the work expanded beyond the photographs. The exhibition incorporated sound, braille texts, and three-dimensional reproductions of the faces, seeking to extend the image into the realm of touch and to open up other ways of approaching the portrait.
These elements are not intended to replace photography, but to move it beyond an exclusively visual condition. The portrait can then also emerge as voice, relief, matter, and bodily experience.
Blind Self-Portrait began as a portrait project, but gradually became a reflection on the different ways in which an image can be perceived.
*BLIND SELF-PORTRAIT was funded by Chile’s National Fund for Cultural and Arts Development (FONDART), 2024*