Since losing her sight June has pursued her dreams to become a writer, historian, disability access auditor and legal consultant, all from her small English coastal town. “June’s Patchwork” captures raw snapshots of June’s everyday life, including moments listening to the large ferries arriving from Holland, spending time with her medieval garden wall, and long walks with her beloved partner David. The film gives viewers time and space to intimately experience June’s joie de vivre and her seeing blindness as a second life stage.
Trailer:
Full film:
A version with audio description is available on request.
More about June:
About June
The Wall
Research Context
Whether in art, literature or media, blind people have been consistently represented as either unfortunate, disabled and deprived (figure 1), or as exotic, mysterious and in touch with the supernatural (figures 2 and 3). This depiction of the blind person as the “abnormal other” is the symptom and, at the same time, partial cause for prejudicial attitudes and practices held by non-blind, and especially non-disabled, people.
Figure 2: Master Po in Kung Fu (1972-1975)
Figure 3: Notes on Blindness (2016)
Public Engagement and Publications Related to the Project
Dr. Catalin Brylla on Documentary and Disability – Community podcast for RIIVE – Darren Gormley and Catalin Brylla discuss the curious relationship between documentary and disability
Breaking Blind Stereotypes in Life & in Media – RNIB Connect Radio podcast series on disability stereotypes and social stigma – recommended by the Radio Times. Pilot ¦ Episode 1 ¦ Episode 2 ¦ Episode 3
A Social Cognition Approach to Stereotyping in Documentary (2018)
Bypassing the Supercrip Trope in Documentary Representations of Blind Visual Artists (2018)
Documentary and Disability (2017)
Spectatorship and Alternative Portrayals of Blindness (2017)