What is beauty? Is it flawless skin and luscious hair? Or is it a perfectly symmetrical face? In a short film entitled Blind Beauty, director Gillian Zinser asks this very question to a group of children and young adults who are visually impaired.
Commissioned by non-profit Art Beyond Sight and presented by NOWNESS, Zinser explores how in a world of social media, the definition of beauty has largely become about looks and less about inner self.
“Every[one] I know seems to struggle constantly with their relationship to their phone and forms of social media,” says Zinser. “I’m really interested in how our addiction to technology is distorting our perception of beauty and how we learn to both define and experience it.”
“Our relationship to mass media consumption is a constant battle against presence and obviously the inevitable image-based comparison at the root of so much of today’s mental health issues,” adds Zinser. “So much of the sighted world seems blinded in other ways by this fast-changing materialistic world fueled by our compulsion for distraction and the constant chase for perfection.”
Created in partnership with the students from Lavelle School for the Blind and The New York Institute of Specialized Education (NYISE), Blind Beauty presents how the visually impaired define and experience beauty with answers to questions about their own identity and self-image.
“I wanted to understand what life was like for someone who was free from this onslaught of data and the media’s role in self-image/worth. What was there to learn from someone who’s entire perception of beauty was based on feelings, sound, scent and touch?” asks Zinser. “From someone who’s never looked in the mirror? What kinds of beauty could these kids feel that perhaps the sighted world is blind to? This piece takes a sensorial plunge into our conversations, offering a confrontation to our own perceptions and addictions.”
“I came away from this experience reminded that there is a dimension where what is beautiful is an entirely, personally arrived at understanding, free from the distorted views dictated by advertisement, Kim Kardashian, likes, and Facetune,” notes Zinser. ‘I was struck by how their understanding of self and their confidence supersedes most of the sighted world I know. Though blind, they are in so many ways so much freer than the rest of us. I hope their voices might inspire us to remember that loneliness doesn’t come from a lack of sight, but perhaps from a lack of presence, both in the world and within ourselves.”
