Tag: Accessibility

Black Hole Sonification by Blind Physicist Kyle Keane at reSOUND New York

I was invited  by accessibility designer  Lauren Race–who took the fabulous above photo of myself and Gio Brignoni!–to an after-hours event at reSOUND New York. Dr. Kyle Keane., a blind physicist and assistive tech lecturer at the University of Bristol translated the energy surrounding a black hole into sound frequencies that fill the “ECHO” exhibit. It was super cool to… Read more

Valentin Haüy’s Essai (1786) * On the Education of Blind Children * NYPL Rare books * Image + Description

I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s… Read more

New York Public Library Talk: “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze” – In-Person on March 8

I’m thrilled to present “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze” at The New York Public Library (NYPL) in-person on March 8, 2pm! Free, but please register. About the Talk Author and scholar M. Leona Godin uses photographs in the Library’s collections to explore the strange relationship between sighted photographers and blind subjects. The photography division of The Miriam and… Read more

A Quartet of Image Descriptions for Paul Strand’s “Blind Woman” (1917)

A picture speaks a thousand words, so lay them on me! Paul Strand’s “Blind Woman” is the first photograph I wrote about as my writing sample for Face of the Blind: Essays on Photography, as part of my successful application to be a New York Public Library Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow this year. As I wrote in my proposal, image description is… Read more

Blindness, Disability, Accessibility, and Innovation * ACT Talk +Essay

ACT Equity Keynote, May 23, 2023 My flurry of travel speaking gigs in the spring finished with an online presentation for ACT (known for their college test). It touches on a lot of the #DownWithOcularcentrism/up with #BlindPride points I discuss in much of  my writing and have been developing in recent talks, where I also incorporate storytelling techniques to keep… Read more

Footnote on ‘Year of the Tiger’ by Alice Wong

Year of the tiger: An Activist’s Life (Vintage, 2022) by Alice Wong (editor of Disability Visibility) is funny and angry and silly and deadly sobering and so much more. It’s a collection of essays, interviews, and images on subjects ranging from accessible and inviting coffee experiences to the Chinese Lunar New Year, from media representations of disabled people to the… Read more