‘Why do we need colours?’ A blind boy and a sighted girl experience a meadow

Name: ‘Why do we need colours?’ A blind boy and a sighted girl experience a meadow | Aeon Videos
Uploaded: 2020-02-28
Duration: 7 min
Description: ‘Why do we need colours?’ A blind boy and a sighted girl experience a meadow

‘What do you think the grass looks like?’

Two friends – a blind boy and a sighted girl – wander through a meadow, riding their bikes, picking dandelions and doing their best to avoid stinging nettles. Now and then, the girl probes the contours of the boy’s sensory experience, often to his annoyance. After all, how can he explain what it’s like to not know or even understand colours, or why his experience doesn’t require them? Deriving depth and nuance from the simple premise of children at play, the Polish filmmaker Filip Jacobson reflects on the possibilities and limits of communicating subjective experience, as well as the diversity of ways to internalise the exterior world.

Director: Filip Jacobson

28 February 2020

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