Wandering eyes / book-inspired creative event

Can our eyes really wander? If yes, what do they see then? Do they see anything at all? How do you create when you can’t use your sense of sight? Or your hands? We will face these and other difficult questions in practice, touching upon the topic of diversity of human bodies and individual capabilities.

We’ll meet with the illustrator of the book Wandering Eyes (Jedno oko na Maroko), Anna Kaźmierak, and use creative activities to reflect on diversity. Wandering Eyes by Tomasz Kwaśniewski is a reporter book for children. It contains fourteen interviews with people who stand out from the crowd. Among the interviewees are a visually impaired person, a bodybuilder, a transgender person, a homeless person, twins, and someone very short. The conversations, which are captivating in their simplicity, respond to the natural curiosity of a child who, seeing a person different from the others, would like to ask many questions.

Why is this man in a wheelchair?
Why is this person so big?
Why do blind people wear dark glasses?
Are there really no differences between twins?
Why does this lady have so many tattoos?

There are no inappropriate questions during this event. We will discuss any issues to our heart’s content. We will recreate selected conversations from the book, with the illustrator symbolically playing the characters. We will reflect on being different, try to see the world through the eyes of others, and practice empathy. In this way, participants will get to know perspectives that are marginalised on a daily basis, and immerse themselves in the diversity of human stories, experiences, and feelings.

But that’s not all! We will also experiment and above all… create, create, create! There will be plenty of painting, cutting and gluing! In short, great fun! We will see for ourselves how people with disabilities can release their creative potential. As a result, we will create collage portraits of the participants using various techniques and materials available.