This exhibition was a very personal experience for me. At the time, I had been going through depression that fueled a need for change. In working myself out of the depression, I found the necessity to acknowledge some key elements of my past by displaying them as a retrospective of the past 30 years. The show was scheduled to open on my 30th birthday as a private viewing held for those that I've shared my life with.

I kept the exhibition contents secret as I worked on putting together ways in which I could exemplify these items importance to me. I wanted to treat them as artifacts since they resembled something that was no longer in existence other than in our memories. The only person I was able to share my intentions with was my good friend and gallery owner for where the show would be, Janel Frey of the Proximity Gallery. These items linked me to the individuals I was leaving them to in a way that only we would have the ability to remember its significance in our lives.

I custom built the cases for the larger three dimensional items out of mahogany. For smaller three dimensional items I chose to shadow box the items with a red velvet backing. Polaroids were also included as they were the way I had been documenting my personal time with family and friends.

I exhibited my will that left each item to the individual who shared an experience with me around it and that could best regurgitate a story behind it. I did not share my own stories with people, rather asked that if anyone was curious, they ask the person the item was left to as to what they remembered about it.

Since the show was so personal, there was a lot that was kept unsaid. Lots of things were missed and hints I had created went unnoticed. In the end the experience was invaluable.

Artist statement from the Exhibition

"We are born, we live, and then we die. What evidence is there that any of us exist other than our ability to acknowledge each other? There are the objects, images and things that outlast us, but they do not communicate our stories, rather we recognize each other in them.

These are objects and images from my life that represent some of my favorite memories of some of the most important people to me. Every object and every image reminds me of something of the past, and each one reflects people that have made my life the great experience I consider it to be.

I’ve included an excerpt from my Will indicating whom I would like some of these objects to go to so that after my death they retain their significance past the extent of me. I move forward from this day with an excitement that death awaits as an exclamation to the stories we continue to write!

Justin Pekera

January 31st 2010"

This is a project I did that developed from a suggestion to take intuitive photographs. I could not conceive of a honest way of being intuitive with a camera unless I was without eyesight. Maybe at the beginning, when I first picked up a camera, and before I was familiar with the elements that made up a photograph, it could be conceived that intuition was being used to take pictures. But after an education and years of contemplation of photographing, my eyes became very selective.

This idea of being without sight became the driving force behind this work. I felt that by giving up my eyesight I was getting back to that beginning period of a photographers journey when all is new and fresh. I discarded all that I had been trained in, letting all considerations of composition and light go, subjecting myself to the subject matter and the decisive moment in which to take a picture.

I began by giving myself a rule to follow to keep the projects integrity intact. The rule was I couldn't have ever seen any of the things I was going to shoot. I felt any familiarity would hinder the idea that I had no prior notion to what any person, place or thing looked like. I wanted the camera merely to act as a device that would replace my eyesight for the duration of time I was photographing my subject matter. It was also at this time that I realized that I would not be able to see any of the things I had encountered until after developing the images from the shoot.

I decided to let go of the cameras control functions as well. I simply put the camera on a fully automatic functionality, and hoped that it would do its job as a reliable tool. This would allow me to focus on the decisive moment of taking the picture that was now triggered by my remaining senses.

Next was defining a subject matter that had more relevance to the conceptual element of the project. I thought that the relationship of being without sight while photographing, and photographing individuals who are visually impaired, would be an interesting starting point of conversation for myself and my subjects. I began by researching schools for the blind in the Philadelphia area and upon my first inquiry I found Overbrook School for the Blind and Lucy Boyle. This was a place I had never been, full of people I had never met, and of which had an interesting vantage point in regards to the elements that made up the project I was undertaking.

With the project now underway I had more to consider. I had a time scheduled to drive up to the school, walk up to the door, close my eyes and walk in to photograph without sight. I would spend four hours with Lucy in the school, and then leave with my exposures, never seeing any of the contents within the building until developing the photographs I had taken.

What I hadn't contemplated was how I was going to stay without sight. Prior to the shoot date I decided that instead of wearing a blindfold, I would simply keep my eyes closed. I felt that in doing this, it showed dedication to the seriousness of my intent and to the discoveries I was after. It also seemed to offer a better sign of respect to those that I would encounter and who had no choice of their visual impairments.

At the end of the day, I was still a sighted individual exploring an idea within a photographic realm. Incorporating Lucy as my main subject matter brought a new problem for me to solve. The problem was that her and I would be sharing an experience together that I would eventually turn into a form of expression that she did not have a way of experiencing based on the definition of a traditional photograph. I felt this was unfair and began to investigate a resolution to this problem.

I conceived that if I could place braille on the surface of the images that were taken, I could give her my direct interpretation of the images through my own words. By placing the braille directly on the images, I was now giving her direct access to the artwork through her own means of interpretation like a sighted person that would have direct access to viewing the photos. By choosing not to translate the braille into written words for the sighted, the sighted now became dependent of those who could read braille, where as before only the visually impaired would be dependent on sighted viewers to describe the photographs to them.

I found that the Associated Services for the Blind was conveniently located in Philadelphia and willing to help me in this task. They allowed me to make Braille press plates that I could emboss inkjet photo paper with. This would give me the raised Braille characters I needed on the surface of the photographs.

The processes, rules, ideas, and concepts were all now defined. I went to Overbrook and I spent four and a half hours talking with Lucy and photographing. It was an invigorating experience for me of which I will never forget. Lucy was a wonderful lady and made the project more than just a photographic exploration. I am forever indebted to her for her compassion to allow me to work with her, and for her to be such a courageous and wonderful women.

Lucy was born with sight, but was blinded by an overdose of silver nitrate drops that were given to newborns to help clean their eyes at birth. Prior to the day of photographing, I had decided that I would only use black & white film. This is a process that uses silver nitrate as a key element to make the photographs possible. How coincidental that the thing that had taken her sight, would now be the primary element that allowed me to see her for the first time.

I went on to win the Florence Whistler Fish Award for this project. Lucy took her own personal time to come and read the Braille to the jury members of the award. This also was the project that brought me to Atlanta for Sight Unseen.

Here are some shots of the exhibition with Lucy reading braille to some viewers (courtesy of Frank Pekera), individual images from the day, and all of the contact sheets that were taken of that day.

This exhibition was made possible because a photographer named Billy Howard had seen my Silver Nitrate work and put me in contact with The Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta Georgia. Upon contacting C.V.I and speaking with Subie Green, I was invited to do an artist in residency at C.V.I, applying much of the same theories and processes I did with Silver Nitrate. The fundamental ideas were the same, however, this time I wanted to further some of the elements I was working with.

I had never been to Atlanta prior to my trip. Because of this, I decided that I would expand the amount of time I would be without sight from the time I left the airport, to the time I got back. This would be more difficult for me to keep my eyes closed for the entirety of the four and a half days so I used a sleep shade when resting, but still primarily relied on my will to keep my eyes closed. The longest I went without the assistance of a sleep shade was approximately six hours.

The other element that changed in Sight Unseen was that instead of choosing to focus on one individual as I did with Lucy Boyle, C.V.I and Atlanta became my subjects. I got to meet many great individuals at C.V.I, as well as spending time with a local Photographer named Oraien Catledge who was visually impaired, but not fully blind.

My friend Kevin Ritchie accompanied me on the trip documenting the experience with video and also being my primary guide in assisting me to get around Atlanta. We later went on to use the footage to create a documentary called Sight Unseen.

The exhibition itself was held at the VSA Arts gallery in Atlanta, which primarily focused on artwork that had been done by, dealt with, or addressed forms of impairments.

Here are some of the images used in the exhibition, shots of the installation, the opening and details of the Brailled photographs.

This is a show I had at Skate Nerds The Minnow. The images were Hi-8 stills from footage my friends and I shot while skateboarding that I hadn't watched in years. The prints were photos taken from the footage on a TV screen, or digitally exported as jpg stills. There was a video projection of my attempts to ollie the love gap next to the imagery. Although a sarcastic title, I found that giving these old memories a present importance was quite nostalgic and enjoyable.