Blind Visionaries: Seeing with Photography Collective

Perkinson Center for the Arts and Education, Virginia

Daniel Kelly is an innovative composer, pianist and conceptualist who has been called “stunningly original” with “a visionary imagination.” His ability to create multi-faceted works that brilliantly incorporate music with literature, visual art and journalism have captivated audiences across the country. A prolific composer and tireless musical explorer, Kelly continually seeks out new avenues for his creativity.

Making connections is one of Kelly’s strengths. He has an uncanny ear for music and storytelling and his deep sense of empathy and humanity make for performances that leave audiences uplifted and curious for more.

Daniel Kelly created Blind Visionaries because of his passion for the stunning images made by the blind and visually impaired photographers of The Seeing With Photography Collective. Kelly first encountered their work more than 15 years ago in New York City and made several visits to the Collective’s weekly photography-making sessions at the Center for the Blind in Manhattan led by the Collective’s director, Mark Andres. Daniel was invited to perform for a gallery exhibition at the Soho Gallery. Kelly and his band performed in the dark as people attending the opening created photos with members of the Collective who use a unique process to create their photos called “light painting.” Photos created by the Collective are also on the front cover and booklet of Kelly’s CD Duets with Ghosts.

Inspired by these incredible photos and the fascinating process of “light painting” used to create them, and his gallery performance experience, Kelly further developed his ideas that led to the creation of Blind Visionaries.

Kelly poured through the entire body of work created by The Seeing With Photography Collective over four decades. From several thousand photos, he selected the 200 images featured in Blind Visionaries. He meticulously curated and ordered the photos using visual themes and different photographic techniques as his guides.

With the photos selected and organized by themes and techniques, he created 10 different films that are projected onto the video screen during the performance of Blind Visionaries. Viewers are immersed into the stunning visual world of The Seeing with Photography Collective as the film delves into each photo, weaving, zooming in and out, and across different parts of each image to reveal the rich visual language and surreal world created by these extraordinary photographers.

But seeing the photography was not enough. Kelly felt audiences would want to know more about these visually impaired photographers and how they could create such stunning photos with their limited ability (or complete inability) to see. He interviewed several members of the Collective and wove the recorded audio interviews throughout the performance. Audience members hear the photographers describe, in their own words, their personal experience of losing their sight and how they draw meaning from the process of creating photos which have been exhibited in galleries throughout the world.

After Kelly selected the photos, created the films, and recorded the interviews, he composed music that captures and amplifies the emotional quality of the photos, immersing the audience into a musical dialogue between the imagery in the photos and the compositions performed by his trio.

One of Kelly’s core values and mission as an artist is engaging with audiences and communities. He wanted to the audience to have the experience of creating a light painting photo, therefore each performance of “Blind Visionaries” includes a participatory segment where patrons are chosen to come on stage to create a photo with members of The Seeing With Photography Collective while the trio continues to play. The images are created on digital cameras, and the newly made photos are projected onto the video screen later in the performance, delighting audiences as they see themselves, their friends and neighbors transported into the captivating visual world they have been

experiencing all throughout the performance.

The “Blind Visionaries” touring cast consists of three members of the Daniel Kelly Trio (piano, bass, drums), Mark Andres, Director of The Seeing with Photography Collective and one visually impaired photographer from the Collective.