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>> samedi, 11 juillet 2020
Diversity
Definition: 1) the fact of many different types of things or people being included in something; a range of different things or people 2) the fact that there are many different ideas or opinions about something.
Source: oxfordictionaries.com

Spot the difference

In the past years, diversity has become a buzzword also greatly used in conjunction with the word ‘inclusivity’. The main idea being that people have all sorts of differences: gender, culture, religion, sexual orientation, skin colour, health conditions, age, etc. And that those differences should be tolerated and embraced to reflect the very own diversity of human kind.
But if diversity possibly means a lot of things, how can this be shown most effectively? Very colourful illustrations of people or silhouettes is one of the main ways of expressing it with an added « crowd » effect. A sure way to encompass everyone indeed! We also notice that full length silhouette portraits almost always feature a person in a wheelchair.
The second most common ways of depicting diversity is to use illustration of hands, again in a great array of colours. And on rare occasions, photographs of ‘real’ hands with different skin tones will be used. Whatever the medium, the composition is always twofold: raising hands or crossing hands on top of each other.
The common thread is by far the illustration approach and why is that? As a general rule and appropriately for this matter: illustrations offer the benefit of not having to be too literal, too much bound by reality and can break the rules of archetypal diverse representation. However, the formulaic use of a crowd and multiple colours may well interestingly result in adverse effects: the very blurring of individual differences, a strange feeling of meaninglessness as well as a very childish way of seeing diversity. All this reminds us a lot of our previous image search on the word “citizen / citoyen”.
Captured on 3rd July 2020
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>> mardi, 07 juillet 2020
Blindness

Definition: 1) the condition of being unable to see 2) the fact of not being conscious of something or of refusing to notice something that is obvious to others. Source: dictionary.cambridge.org

Ways of seeing blindness

Blindness is a complex word to illustrate and this is reflected in its Google image search.

The medical condition is shown either through close shots of eyes and retinas or through head shots portraits.  But the ‘whole’ person, the personality and life of blind people is absent.

Only the very formulaic visual cues of the white cane and braille alphabet are offered as a glimpse of what it is to live as a blind person.

The image that appears most is the poster of the 2008 movie Blindness adapted from José Saramago’s 1995 novel of the same name. In his book, the Nobel Prize laureate in Literature tells the story of a highly contagious white blindness disease for which infected patients are put in quarantine. The pandemic threatens to become a huge country drama and supports the author’s metaphoric view that all human beings are inherently blind.

« I think we are blind, blind but seeing, blind people who can see, but do not see » are the final words of Saramago’s novel. And so, interestingly, whilst we are trying to better see blindness, we are offered a magnificent « mise en abime » through the poster of a fictional work.

Captured on 3rd July 2020

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