After a sold-out performance on March 1, I’m delighted to announce a second chance to experience “100 years of Blindness: A Scented Performance Lecture on Photography” on April 15, 7pm, at Olfactory Art Keller, NYC!
What happens when we explore photography without sight? In this experimental performance lecture, blind author and artist Dr. M. Leona Godin conjures five iconic photographs of blind subjects (1887–1997) without offering them to the physical eyes of her audience. Through narrative, image description, scent, and touch, she evokes both photographer and subject—frozen in a single instant, plucked from the vastness of a life. This is a slow seeing through sensory translation, putting Roland Barthes’s notion of the punctum to the test: “I may know better a photograph I remember than a photograph I am looking at.”
Photography—assumed to be a purely visual medium—is a trick of chemistry and light that, at its best, transcends what is strictly seen. Walker Evans called it “the most literary of the graphic arts” for its ability to transport and transmute. Sight itself is not independent; it is interpreted in the brain, shaped by experience, bias, and affinity. Yet ocularcentrism makes vision seem inevitable, even neutral, when it is neither. Godin invites her audience to abandon the tyranny of the visual and step into another mode of perception—one that transforms and lingers.
This project began in the photography collection at the New York Public Library @NYPLArt, where Godin discovered photos of anonymous blind people that sparked trails of association. Her exploration was supercharged by the 2023 launch of Be My AI, a ChatGPT-powered app that delivers near-instant image descriptions, helping her build mental pictures she refines through historical research, photography theory, and conversations with AI and “sighted informants,” as blind cultural critic Georgina Kleege calls them. This recursive process—translating the visual into the verbal and back again—mirrors photography itself, where chemicals develop, disclose, reverse, and fix light.
Four of these images exist in stark black and white. The fifth is spectral blue—a cyanotype, made by the lone blind photographer who steps into the frame of his own picture.
Each photographic journey is punctuated with a scented, tactile token, handmade by Godin, offering the audience something to smell, touch, and take home—a snapshot fabricated not of light, but of objecthood and odor. Like a magician or hypnotist, Godin draws her audience into a shared act of perception, where belief and imagination shape what can be seen, smelled, and felt.
Blackout shades are provided. You won’t need your eyes for this.
Pics from March 1
With AI descriptions…
A woman (that’s me) wearing sunglasses and a black outfit is sitting on a chair in a room with blue lighting. She has earphones around her neck and is gesturing with her hand. Next to her is a small table with several jars and a skull-like object on it. A braided whip or similar object is hanging on the wall behind her. Another person’s leg and boot are partially visible in the lower right corner.
A group of people sitting closely together, all wearing blindfolds. They appear to be in a dimly lit room with a blue hue. One person is holding a jar, and others seem to be passing it along. The individuals are dressed warmly, suggesting a cool environment.
A group of people sitting closely together, all wearing black blindfolds. The setting appears to be indoors with a blue lighting effect. There is a window in the background through which parked cars and a street can be seen. The people are dressed in casual clothing, and some are wearing jackets and scarves.
A woman (that’s me) with long hair is wearing sunglasses and earphones. She appears to be speaking or singing. The lighting in the room is blue, giving everything a bluish tint. She is sitting next to a small table with some items on it, including a couple of round containers and a small black case. There is a black strap or rope hanging in the background.
*Check out my first scented, tactile performance HERE!