MAKA

Being a very visual person by nature, my eyes observe constantly — the paintings I create, people in the street, the screen, nature, works of art, and also a great deal of unnecessary visual noise, like advertising.
That is why I have often asked myself: what is it like to be in this visual silence, aside from its painful and limiting aspects? Does it open up a completely different inner world? Do touch, hearing, and smell become more developed? Does one look more inward?
How does all this influence artistic creation? What kinds of sensitivity and ways of working, different from those of sighted people, can emerge? What is the difference in the creative process between a blind person and a partially sighted one?
These are just some of the questions and reflections that emerged for me — first during the preliminary meeting, then throughout the process, and which continue to unfold even now.

Art has been part of my life since childhood — drawing, painting, sculpting. Looking back, I see that my connection with visually impaired people also began very early.
A close family friend, Jhanna, who gradually lost her sight, was one of the first people through whom I experienced this world. I dedicate this work to her.
As a teenager, I worked in a day center for blind and deaf people in Jerusalem. Later, with Edith Kramer and in my mother Elena Makarova’s workshops, I explored working without sight — drawing, moving, and modeling clay blindfolded. These experiences showed me that touch can create a deeper and more direct connection to form than vision.
Inspired also by Edith Kramer and Victor Lowenfeld, who challenged the idea that blind people cannot create meaningful art, I chose to carry out my internship in art therapy with visually impaired participants.
This thesis presents that experience with a group of five people, focusing in particular on Betti, a 46-year-old blind woman, whose process was rich in emotional and artistic content. Clay became the central and essential material of the work.
 

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2022