Daniel, thanks for participating. When Rishika Kartik, Outreach Director for The Blind Urban Subject, reached out to me, I know immediately we wanted to explore your work and background. How about starting with a description of The Blind Urban Subject.
Thanks so much, Wayne, for showcasing our work! We’re really excited about this project and what it brings to our community. The Blind Urban Subject is an interactive public art installation on Thayer Street in Providence that allows passersby to experience urban life from the perspective of America’s four most common eye conditions: glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, and cataracts. The housing is a traditional Tower Viewer, like those you might find at a boardwalk or vista. When you approach the intersection, you will also find nine floor decals, four of which are brief explanations of the ocular conditions you can experience in the viewer, while the other five are statements and quotes about blindness.
What was the genesis of the project?
Rishika, Zoe Goldemberg, and I have unique paths that brought us together in making this project. But first, the story starts before we arrived on Brown’s campus.
Rishika and I met in high school as newly inducted Coca-Cola Scholars, when we discovered that we were both rising freshmen at Brown and have backgrounds in the arts and with blindness – I through lived experience, and Rishika through tactile art at the Colorado School for the Blind. When we arrived in Providence, Rishika and I laid down the groundwork for forming Blind@Brown, the association for the blind and visually impaired at Brown and RISD. Given that this was the first time blindness had been introduced as a mainstream concept on Brown’s campus, the majority of our work revolves around public education and awareness. Rishika and I developed a credit-bearing course with the assistance of Professor Sarah Skeels called “Blindness, Arts, and Media” (BAM). Most, if not all, of the students had no prior experience with or understanding of blindness. Zoe, who was also a BAM student, previously developed a prototype for assistive technology for the blind through a design engineering studio. She and Rishika knew each other as U.S. Presidential Scholars, and I knew her as a fellow Miami native.
Last Fall, I enrolled in a course called “The City,” which is Brown’s introductory course on urbanism. A unit from the course called “The Urban Subject” analyzed how different identities such as gender, race, religion, and disability impact how people interact with the built environment. Even though I have been visually impaired for my entire life, this was the first time that I thought critically about my blindness and how that has shaped my urban experience. Given our experience with “Blindness, Arts, and Media,” I thought there might be public interest in learning more about the lived experiences of blind and visually impaired people. I brought the idea to Rishika and Zoe, and the rest is history.
And who along with you brought it to fruition?
Zoe Goldemberg is the design engineering director, and is responsible for the apparatus that delivers the visual simulation. She brought together an incredible group of Brown and RISD students Gresh Chapman, Hudson Hale, and Yutaka Tomokiyo to design and create the apparatus that makes this whole project possible. Rishika Kartik is the outreach director, creating substantive connections in the blind and visually impaired community on both a local and national level, and stewarded our collaboration with physicians at the Brown University Alpert Medical School’s Division of Ophthalmology.
What would you like people to take away from a visit to this public art piece at the intersection of Angell and Thayer Streets?
Above all, I want this installation to inspire a more nuanced understanding of the blind and visually impaired. Oftentimes, sighted people perceive blindness as a lightswitch – that you either have sight, or no sight. That’s simply not the case. Blindness is a spectrum, it’s incredibly diverse, and every blind person experiences blindness uniquely. On a broader level, with all the divisiveness and polarization we see in the world, I think this is an important opportunity for people to understand how others experience life in profoundly different ways, and how that contributes to their worldview.
You were born legally blind. Tell us about how that challenged you growing up in Miami – and how it inspired your advocacy?
I try not to make blindness my primary occupation. Rather, I see it as a perspective through which to understand societal issues from a unique angle. When I was younger, my parents were very insistent that I would matriculate into a traditional public school rather than a program for the blind. Throughout primary and secondary school, I was often the only blind or visually impaired student in my school, and for many if not all of my teachers and peers, I was the only visually impaired person in their lives. To advocate for myself, I learned that I first needed to explain blindness to others, what it means, and how it impacts my daily life. My ability to succeed in this environment relied largely on my ability to create understanding with others. This concept of mutual understanding has since been the bedrock of my advocacy – for myself, for others, and for the issues about which I am passionate.
And give us some detail please on your advocacy.
A violinist of thirteen years, while in Miami, I was mostly involved in advocacy for arts education through founding the Pinecrest City Music Project (PCMP), an arts education and community development organization that operates, funds, and instructs in-school programs and community arts festivals primarily through federal, state, and country grant contracts. PCMP is also a contractor to Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the district’s only student-run vendor. This, coupled with my lived experience navigating Miami’s public school system, led to my advocacy and academic interest in education policy. I am currently a dual-language/ESL substitute teacher in the Providence Public Schools, and I serve as the education caucus director of Brown College Democrats. I plan to write my honors thesis on urban education.
Guided by my Jewish values and upbringing, I am very involved in combating antisemitism, the world’s oldest form of hatred and bigotry, on Brown’s campus and in the community. Last summer, I served as the Goldman Fellow to the CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the global advocacy organization of the Jewish people, where I am now the executive vice president of the AJC Campus Global Board, the organization’s global advisory board on university antisemitism.
You are currently a junior at Brown University. What are you studying?
I study political science and urban studies. I’m interested in exploring the role of communities in advancing social policy.
A profile of you at the Brown News site quotes you as saying “If we want to get serious about inclusivity and accessibility, and if we really want to advance the place of blind people in our society, we need to do so not just structurally, but culturally.” Can you break that down for us please?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted into law in 1990; in that same Congress, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted into law. Multiple bills have been enacted into law before and after these landmark pieces of legislation. We have the legal structure and understanding. However, in 2024, only around 15% of blind and visually impaired Americans attain a college degree versus the 38% national average. We need to understand this gap, and work together to enable and empower all blind and visually impaired students to achieve their full potential.
You also said “blindness doesn’t function in a silo. It’s something that affects us all, and it’s never limited to one specific model or framework.” Again, expand on that please.
We need society to recognize that blindness is a diverse spectrum, and that everyone experiences it differently. To enable full participation of blind and visually impaired people in society, we need everyone to come together and understand how to make our communities more inclusive and accessible for everyone – including the blind and visually impaired.
Do you have plans yet for when you graduate from Brown?
I hope to lead a life of purpose. Where that takes me, or where to start, I’m not sure. Ask me in a year!
And finally, what advice do you have for people of any age who are living with vision challenges? That’s a lot of folks, as you know.
You’re right! Whether it’s through birth, accident, disease, or age, millions of Americans are blind and visually impaired. It’s important to be involved in programs and services that can support independence and confidence in daily life, typically provided through state agencies for the blind. My advice thereafter is to strive towards all that you wish to achieve, because if you don’t, others won’t think it’s possible.
