About the Artist

Elizabeth Sheeler

Navigational empathy is created in my work by thinking about the space we live in. In my experience of the environment there is a one-track mindset of the way navigation is handled in a space. My practice is strongly influenced by my eye condition called aniridia. While discussing the hardships of blindness, I also focus on the participant’s complete sensory experience. By disrupting the viewer’s expected standards through an activity, they are confronted by an alternative decision-making process. Instead of relying on one sense, the individual has to navigate the environment with other senses. In return this puts the audience in a perspective of the environment a blind individual walks through on a daily basis. This puts the participant in a situation that forces them to look inward, examining themselves, their experience, and to find their own way to an introspective empathy.