Artist – Sarah Ruttle
Beyond the Darkness
Schull Community Hospital & Bantry General Hospital, St. Joseph’s Unit
Video
Beyond the Darkness aimed to explore new creative approaches for working with people with visual impairments. The outcome was a participant-led research project utilising tactile and audio artworks, followed by an artist-to-artist learning exchange presentation.
Having worked with many Arts for Health participants with visual impairments, Sarah Ruttle was eager to undertake this research. Creating alongside these residents compelled Sarah to explore how she could adapt her practice to ensure inclusivity during her sessions. As a textile artist, Sarah chose to start her creative conversation in making textile sensory pieces. However, the direction of making is always led by participants interest and positive engagement. With this in mind, the development of the project continued to grow through creative writing and the dramatic impact of sound.
Experiencing the Senses
Participants were invited to take part in three one-to-one sessions with Sarah. They worked together creatively using sensory artworks inspired by the West Cork islands. These pieces included a textured fabric map, and sensory pockets filled with sea shells, seaweed, and driftwood, introducing sound and smell to the project.
Basing the project on the West Cork Islands gave a familiarity for participants to take the conversation where they wanted. As the conversation grew so did a descriptive story/experience of the coast. The aim was to describe a journey in such detail that if you had visual impairment, or sat with closed eyes, you could imagine yourself there in that moment. Through the description, participants could experience the journey, connect with senses, feelings and memories. This developed into the Beyond the Darkness audio script, written in collaboration with participants from both Schull and Bantry.
Project Progression
Sarah wanted to share her experience in this project with other participants and artists so decided to present images and audio together. Sarah took photos to connect with the story. As the audio plays, the images shift and change, reflecting what it would be like to experience vision loss or deterioration of eyesight.
In 2024, learning from Beyond the Darkness shaped the direction of collaborative projects with participants in both Schull and Bantry. With a new focus on using different media to consider our senses, participants created work in porcelain clay as well as taking on a textile project, named by a participant A little piece of magic. Each project gave different participants another way to connect, whether they were forming something in soft delicate clay, or choosing fabric depending on its texture and how it made them feel.
Sarah’s research in this area continues in another project entitled Blossoming Beyond the Darkness.
Timeframe
The work was developed throughout 2023, and came to a close in September 2023.
Testimonies
‘Being able to sit with participants and have open and honest conversations about the impact of vision loss has been humbling while being incredibly inspiring seeing how participants have adjusted and conquered the challenges they’ve come across.’ – Sarah Ruttle
Credit: Images by Sarah Ruttle.
This research project was funded by the Arts for Health Partnership Programme, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre.