As her new exhibition with Vincent van de Wijngaard opens in London, we revisit the model and artist’s musing on a poignant book by John M. Hull
“John M. Hull was fully sighted until he was a young man, and in his forties he lost his sight completely. On Sight and Insight: A Journey Into the World of Blindness is dark in every sense. It’s not a beautiful story – he’s struggling even to stay awake – but it’s very beautifully written. There are passages about turning off the senses to focus on what is happening inside – creating a new relationship with the outside world. For example, when you’re blind you can lose your sense of scale, and I was fascinated by how he lay on a stone to measure his body. He had a special roof made for the rain that made a lot of noise; he liked wind because without wind there’s no space. I read this book in art school but it still interests me. My grandmother developed macular degeneration and it usually runs in families. I’m told it appears like a black dot in the middle of your eyes.”
Dutch artist and model Saskia de Brauw has a soft, deliberate way of speaking which seems somewhat at odds with her eminent, expressive features. In fact, there’s a characteristic power and grace to both – introvert and extrovert combined. This spring she presents Ghosts Don’t Walk in Straight Lines, with partner Vincent van de Wijngaard. The work, filmic, photographic and textual, charts a psychogeographical experiment which saw her walk slowly from the northernmost to the southernmost point of Manhattan – “a place I did not really like; it is way too fast for me”. The walk took 20 hours, the project many years. It promises to be an extraordinary exercise in looking inwards.
Hair: Blake Erik at Statement Artists using Hairstory. Make-up: Susie Sobol at Julian Watson Agency. Set design: Ian Salter at Frank Reps. Digital tech: Frederike Heide. Photographic assistant: Christopher Parente and Max Bernetz. Styling assistants: Rebecca Perlmutar, Kat Banas and Athena Zammit. Production: Artistry London. Post-production: Studio Private
Ghosts Don’t Walk in Straight Lines runs from March 9-11, 2018, at the Store X, London.
This story originally featured in the Spring/Summer 2018 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale now.
