Privacy Project & Exhibition
Photos of the series Privacy were created together with a blind young man. With my eyes closed, I took photographs “blindly”. My collaborator was my leader in the world without vision. I asked him to introduce me to a space I had ever known or seem before – to take me to his personal space and help me explore that without the ability to see. I experienced something extraordinary as this boy, who is blind from birth, held my hand and familiarized me with his world and the lights there-in. Instead of seeing, composition was assisted by touching. Taking pictures of each other was a new kind of cognition and experience. It was an insight into the other’s world.
Photo series with audio commentary
“Lili Zoe Ermezei’s series study limits that appear between people in situations built on trust, investigating their shifting, dissolution, and meanings. She changes a conventional component of situations, or picks the person in a way that we become part of an unexpected and bold journey. She diverts us from the usual in order to make us re-read and re-write the world.
In Privacy, we set off with the safety of a young blind man’s grip, who is visually impaired from birth, and proceed to see Lili Zoe Ermezei and the young man himself through this process in the invisible and visible world they traveled together. Setting the boundary for the impossible, she formulates questions through her messages during the process: is one that can see able to not see? What kind of patterns does one who has never seen the world apply to develop his or her internal images? What kind of knowledge of our world does the sense of touch bring us to? And how dominant does one mode of perception become in the absence of the other? Does it get attenuated or stronger?”
CSIZEK Gabriella, curator Hungarian House of Photography
Audio 1.
“I asked you to lead me around your room while I keep my eyes closed. This is how you showed me – my hand in yours – where your chair and your table with your computer on top were. I gave you my camera, so we could take a photo of us. In this picture, our faces are close and we turn towards the camera. One of my locks is in my forehead and you are smiling…”
Audio 2.
“Here, we touch, both of us show, although you more, I less. There is a piece of my forehead and my eyebrow in the upper left corner of the picture.”
Audio 3.
“This is a portrait of you that I shot with eyes closed. Your left profile is up close and you are smiling here as well. I wonder what you were thinking of. You have two tiny birthmarks on your nose, I like them.”
Audio 4.
“This is a photo you took of me. My eyes are closed, I have my green coat on and there is a yellowish poster in the background. I like this picture of me.”
Audio 5.
“Our profiles touch, your whole face shows, but of me only my eyes closed tight appear. I am deep in concentration, you, however, are smiling. You have a nice and calm smile. I have noticed that you are smiling in almost all of the photos, still you have a different smile on your face in each of them.”
Audio 6.
“This is another photo you took of me; the tips of your fingers are touching the top of my head. I had been anxious that I would be embarrassed by the touch of another, but as opposed to my expectations it was not odd at all. It was more like a thrilling discovery. It seemed to be a possibility to immerse myself deeper into your world.”
Audio 7.
“You showed me where the window was and explained whence the light was coming from, although you never saw it. You remembered to call my attention to the direction of the light, I had completely forgotten that. The camera was set to autofocus and we did not know on what it was focusing. This image, for example, is completely blurred; in it, we are face to face and only our faces show. We are standing in front of your wardrobe, although it is but a blur in the photo.”
Audio 8.
“Our profiles touch, your whole face shows, but of me only my eyes closed tight appear. I am deep in concentration, you, however, are smiling. You have a nice and calm smile. I have noticed that you are smiling in almost all of the photos, still you have a different smile on your face in each of them.”
