The website www.bjp-online.com has various categories of interest but the one i have chosen to focus on is the listings of exhibitions.
The listings are broken down into 12 areas:
London, North, Midlands, East, West, South, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Isle of Man and other.
I have chosen to focus on the north where there are currently 9 listings on the website.
The one I am choosing to focus on is an exhibition titled
"The Rolling Exhibition"
It features the work of Kevin Connolly, a 23 year old who was born with no legs and has taken many photos documenting the stares he receives from the general public from around the world.
Brief biography of Artist
Kevin Michael Connolly is a twenty-three-year-old who has seen the world in a way most of us never will. Whether swarmed by Japanese tourists at Epcot Center as a child or holding court at the X Games on his mono-ski as a teenager, Kevin has been an object of curiosity since the day he was born without legs. Growing up in rural Montana, he was raised like any other kid (except, that is, for his father’s MacGyver-like contraptions such as the “butt boot”). As a college student, Kevin traveled to seventeen countries on his skateboard and, in an attempt to capture the stares of others, he took more than 30,000 photographs of people staring at him. In this dazzling memoir, Connolly casts the lens inward to explore how we view ourselves and what it is to truly see another person. We also get to know his quirky and unflappable parents and his spunky girlfriend. From the home of his family in Helena, Montana to the streets of Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur, Connolly’s remarkable journey will change the way you look at others, and the way you see yourself.
Reviews
A courageous, immensely rewarding chronicle expressed in arresting words and pictures.
- Starred Kirkus Review
“Life’s most successful survivors meet adversity head on, with an unflinching eye, candor and with humor. Kevin Connolly has such an eye and weaves a rich memoir from the gut about his amazing journey through life.”
- Lee Woodruff
#1 New York Times Bestselling author of In an Instant
Artist Statement
1 year ago I was asked by a little boy in Christchurch, New Zealand if I had been eaten by
a shark.
2 months ago I was asked by an elderly woman in Sighisoara, Romania if I had lost my legs in a
car accident.
6 weeks ago I was asked by a bar patron in Helena, Montana if I still wore my dog tags from
Iraq.
Everyone tries to create a story in their heads to explain the things that baffle them. For the
same reason we want
to know how a magic trick works, or how mystery novel ends, we want to know how
someone different, strange, or
disfigured came to be as they are. Everyone does it. It's natural. It's curiosity.
But before any of us can ponder or speculate - we react. We stare. Whether it is a glance or
a neck twisting ogle,
we look at that which does not seem to fit in our day to day lives. It is that one instant of
unabashed curiosity -
more reflex than conscious action - that makes us who we are and has been one of my goals
to capture over the
past year.
It is after this instant that we try to hazard a guess as to why such an anomalous person exists.
Was it disease?
Was it a birth defect? Was it a landmine? These narratives all come from the context in
which we live our lives.
Illness, drugs, calamity, war - all of these might become potential stories depending upon
what we are exposed to
in connection with disability.
In each photograph the subjects share a commonality, but what does their context say?
Looking at each face, I saw
humanity. Rolling through their streets, I found the unique cultures and customs that created
an individual.
