Sports & Entertainment
Inside the Light: blind life in photos
  • | VNS | August 20, 2015 12:46 PM

A photo exhibition in downtown Ha Noi features the lives of visually impaired people in Ha Noi, offering insight into their unique worldview.

Mind's eye: Visitors look at high schoolers' photos displayed at the exhibition.

Chieu Sau Anh Sang (Inside the Light) is a unique exhibition of 30 coloured and black-and-white photos of the daily activities of visual-impaired people at Nguyen Dinh Chieu junior secondary school and at the Centre for Training and Rehabilitation for the Blind.

A group of high school students in Ha Noi hoped to do something meaningful for the community during their summer holiday, so they decided to organise the exhibition.

"We want to do activities that are meaningful, new and are not usually done during our summer holiday. I was a student at Nguyen Dinh Chieu secondary school where I studied with visual-impaired students. Their life, difficulties, pressures and optimistic spirits inspired me to make this exhibition," said Le Vu Ha Chi, a 12th-grade student at Ha Noi-Amsterdam High School.

"It took us about two months to take these pictures. We needed to spend time talking to the blind to understand them more, so that we could have photos that reflected their daily life more truthfully and deeply," said Kieu Khoi Nguyen, from the same school. "We wanted to convey blind people's difficulties and optimistic spirits to visitors."

For visual-impaired visitors, the exhibition offers a tactile experience by providing 3D models of world wonders. Instead of reading about these wonders from books or print media, they can touch them to help them imagine the physical world.

Apart from the photos on display, visitors can experience blind people's daily activities in interactive sections where they are blindfolded and asked to paint, do puzzles, write and read Braille.

"After seeing pictures here and engaging in some of the activities, I feel very sympathetic with the blind. I can do these activities easily in my life, but when I was blindfolded, I couldn't. I think this is a meaningful opportunity and thank the organisers for giving me such an interesting experience," said Luong My Linh, 26.

The visitors can buy souvenirs such as notebooks and postcards at the exhibition to raise funds for the very same people photographed at the exhibition.

The exhibition was funded by the Summit English Centre and Soha News, and is located at 16 Ngo Quyen Street.

Leave your comment on this story