Letter on the Blind, for the Use of Those Who See [Carta sobre los ciegos, para uso de los que ven]

Javier Téllez film and installation work challenges the role of authoritative institutions and established notions of normalcy. For this black and white film transferred to video, Téllez stages an enactment of an Asian parable that recounts how six blind individuals were asked to touch an elephant and relay their experience. The title for the piece is borrowed from the name of an essay by eighteenth-century French philosopher Denis Diderot and suggests the difficulties the blind and the sighted have in understanding each other’s experience. The blind may not see the world as the sighted do, while the sighted only have a limited experience of living with blindness. This work--part scripted fiction, part documentary film--opens a path for mutual understanding through the moving acceptance of our shared humanity.