Project Idea

What do we see? What do others see? With this seemingly simple question four students from the Arno-Fuchs School occupied themselves for two months. Some might ask themselves, how could one work on such a topic over a number of weeks. Doesn’t everyone have two eyes? Regardless of who? So every person sees the same thing At least when one is not colour/totally blind. But the goal was something other than merely the “seeing of things”.
With the help of digital photo and video cameras the four put themselves into the visual world of their fellow students. All of them have different eye levels, for some due to their size, for others due to their bearing, or from sitting in a wheelchair as is the case for one of the students. Through the project, they were to mutually explore their physical eyelevel with the help of digital technology, and through that identify on a social level with others „taller“ or „shorter“ then them. They should then put themselves in the others’ positions, and become familiar with other perspectives, accept fellow beings and reflect upon themselves. Furthermore, it should also be shown that each student has their own very important place in the school.
Summarized, the following points give a short overview of the individual project steps:

All of that, is what the team took upon themselves for the next eight weeks.

But let’s start from the beginning. The students had to be introduced to the plan bit by bit. The perception of one’s own body size naturally belongs to this, along with the resulting eyelevel.
Certainly: Considered objectively it doesn’t make a difference if one is a few centimetres taller or shorter than another. Through the nature of the human eye we are capable of seeing by all means very wide-angled, so that the seen is not inevitably dependent upon the different height of two people.
But as already explained, the social aspects played the main role in this project. With the help of a “frame” made of photo paper, the students’ task was simplified and the field of vision significantly reduced. Through these so-called glasses, which were secured to a stick at eyelevel, they could see the surroundings as observed in a photo. And through this limitation of the field of vision, they actually saw different things. Some things remained hidden to those who were tall, but could be seen by those who were shorter (e.g. when one stands before a table) and vise versa. The making of the „glasses“ and the exploration of the school surroundings thus served as an introduction to the project. Completely equipped, the photographers could wander through the school in search of motifs, at times eyed with wonderment or sceptical looks. What is one to think, when they encounter such a group?