Dialog in the Dark
A Conversation in More Than Sound
This will be a string of similes. It’s impossible not to compare like to like when you come from sight and descend into blindness. Grasping onto the vibrant spectrum of light, I drink it in greedily, waiting on my stool.
Darkness.
To wait in a room of strangers as all visual reference is stripped from you is a somewhat unnatural experience. At Union Station from now until March 29, 2009, Dialog in the Dark will give the Midwest a glimpse into what blindness looks like. This is the first stop in the United States of the internationally acclaimed exhibition, which not only heightens awareness about visual impairment, but also employs the visually impaired in each exhibition outpost.
Developed in 1988 by Dr. Andreas Heinecke, a German philosopher, the exhibit is meant to close the gap between the sighted and the blind, and illuminate the uninformed about the world of the visually impaired. After working with the Foundation for the Blind in Frankfurt, Germany, Dr. Heinecke was appalled by the lack of understanding and in some cases, fear, of those that relied on the other four senses. Through the exhibit, which is presented in total darkness, he found a way to let the sighted put to rest their fears and to employ thousands of the blind over the last twenty years.
I have to admit, I was excited by the prospect of Dialog in the Dark coming to Kansas City. While in Basel, Switzerland, two years ago, I visited Blindekuh, a dark restaurant. The dark dining concept was spawned from the original Dialog in the Dark exhibits in Europe. Started in Zurich, Blindekuh, German for blind man’s bluff, took the blindness experience to a whole new level, eating. Like Dialog in the Dark, all the servers at Blindekuh were blind or visually impaired.
The Blindekuh experience was a humbling one. After choosing what you would eat before entering the dark room, you were faced with the real challenge—finding it. Suddenly the most basic task, sustaining myself, was a monumental one, as pride refused to let me put down my fork and knife. I chose the surprise menu, upping the ante on my sensory abilities. Tastes were a mystery as identifying what I was eating became tantamount to reading and understanding Sanskrit. I was grateful each time I found my water glass without knocking it over.
Dialog in the Dark adds a measure of safety to the equation. Standing in the queue to enter the Immersion Room, we were told to choose a cane that was the appropriate height to help us feel our way through the hour-long exhibit. After instruction on how to use our new navigational tools we entered our immersion chamber, where we were introduced to our guide, a pleasant 28-year old man named Jeremy. Jeremy had retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that was slowly stripping him of his sight.
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