Thika

Hot, bothered and watching a tiny television while waiting for a domestic plane at Mombassa airport, I was fascinated to discover blind children playing soccer in Kenya, I knew I had to visit their school.

While the deputy principle was gathering some children to photograph, I noticed this young girl (Teresa) who was blindly fumbling her way from one side of the school yard to the other. I asked the deputy if Teresa could join us and I was told it wasn't possible. Her family couldn't afford the school fees and her mother was currently being told by the principle to take her home today. The deputy went on and said that without continued education at her age, Teresa would get left behind and struggle to integrate and engage with society. I thought back to my own childhood and how at Teresa's age I didn't have a care in the world.

This project aims to bring awareness to the daily struggles that some children endure, by trying to give you their respective visual impairment. With each photo the viewer ‘sees’, it is ironically as though they become the child in the photo, less able to clearly ‘see’ what lies in front of them. In this way, the series itself becomes a metaphor for deterioration.