Blind Photographer Pasha Alden’s Exhibition
Venue: Red Café
Review
By Benevolence Mazhinji
Even when her eyesight began to recede into a shadow and her vision slowly thinned into a few streaks of colour across the light, Pasha Alden has continued to rely on the faint glimmer of brightness and the bold flashes of colour that are present in the world around her. “Some days I could see the sun, and I could even see some blue in the sky, like a stripe of blue on the horizon,” she said. Her photographs are more than just a creative output; they are, as she said, “a protest against darkness.”
When I walked into Red Café on High Street, a small crowd had already gathered around her exhibition board, leaning in closely, whispering and pointing in awe of what they saw. To take her photos, Alden has to move in close, sometimes inches away from her subject. She looks for contrast and colours she can still see, such as the red of berries against a brick wall or the orange of a flower that stands out against the green. One of her favourite images – Bricks and Berries – captures the bleeding-heart plant that blooms outside her home each year. Because she cannot see the full picture, she relies on her phone’s camera and voice-guided tools to help frame the shot. “I don’t touch my photos with Photoshop,” she said. “It feels a bit dishonest to me.” Instead, she trusts what she sees and what she feels to aid her creative process.
The themes in her work are deeply existential. “To some people, losing sight is like death,” she said. “But I will fight that; it will not overcome me.” Her art affirms life and meaning. She encourages other artists to do the same. She said, “We all have a story to tell, which means there’s meaning to be found, and that meaning must be given a voice.”
