Ari Kerssens

Senseless

Ari Kerssens believed his career as an artist was over when his congenital condition caused the sudden loss of nearly all his vision eight years ago. Initially hoping to “fix the problem” of blindness, he started a degree in Biomedical Sciences the following year, with a view to pursue post-graduate research into retinal medicine.

By the completion of his Bachelor’s degree, Kerssens’ perception of blindness had totally changed. He realised that the access barrier between himself and the arts was not a lack of eyesight – rather, a lack of understanding, in the culture, built environment, and systems encompassed in the world of art – and beyond.

Currently he is seeing change and opportunity where others might never have seen how an existing status quo in the field of visual arts didn’t just need to shift to be more inclusive, but stood to expand itself both culturally and economically. Kerssens doesn’t just see where the world of art can take itself beyond the visual for the sake of an excluded access community, but also sees how this expansion serves the interests of the arts as a more dynamic and integrated paradigm of aesthetic commentary he terms “experiential art”.

Kerssens’ eye condition, combined with a love of visual culture, has instilled him with a unique grasp of where the accessibility sector and the arts could intersect—an intersection he now seeks to explore and bolster in a project titled Senseless.

SHIFT TO POSSIBILITY

Senseless began as an idea called Sight Dependent, a project co-initiated by GCOP helms-woman Minnie Baragwanath and blind singer-songwriter and advocate Caitlin Smith. In essence, it’s original configuration was as a single exhibition aimed at redefining the art experience as one not so dependent on sight (thus the name), a provocation to explore where and how art excludes the non-visual, and what vibrant aesthetic alternatives might exist outside the limitations of this single sense.

Kerssens had found what he was looking for—a project which synthesised his own conundrum of wanting an artistic career while navigating impaired vision.

Alongside broadening perspectives on what art is and isn’t capable of beyond visual templates, Kerssens could also see how the project could establish a new culture around the celebration and understanding of artists with access needs—potentially a whole new voice!

Not only are access-artists frequently deployed by galleries for the dreaded diversity tick-box (if they’re engaged at all), but this tokenistic platforming so often expects access-artists to translate their unique perspectives into the given idioms—idioms which treat access voices as marginal, in favour of adhering to existing canons. From this Kerssens had the idea of visiting larger institutions in Europe—galleries archives and museums which at this moment in time lead the way in terms of their accessibility, in every sense of the word. With support from Creative NZ, Kerssens made it as far as Amsterdam before covid hit, inevitably cutting the trip short. Which might’ve been a blessing in disguise.

KERSSENS AND THE GCOP

Since then Kerssens has reconnected with Baragwanath at the GCOP and is currently redrawing the project, having already made relationships with a gallery in Auckland where he is set to have the first official Senseless exhibition. Outside the exhibition itself—which will deconstruct the visual primacy of art by engaging the other senses—the GCOP is arming Kerssens with the industry knowledge to source those access artists in his own community and begin engaged conversations with galleries not just about inclusion, but also about holding those artists to the same rigorous expectations of excellence which their counterparts receive.

Perhaps counterintuitively, when access artists are showcased the focus is on the gallery’s performance of inclusion which ultimately improves their chances of receiving funding—and resultingly, the work of those artists is often secondary, which has a knock-on effect in terms of quality and public perceptions. This passively held “deficit” model’ favours visibility as an inherent good, where Kerssens and the GCOP are advocating for real critical engagement with the work and artists themselves.

If anything, the covid disruption of the project has afforded the GCOP the opportunity to mentor Kerssens to a broader vision, one where a replicable model can be made at home before being pitched overseas. As an extension of the centre’s vision, they are helping Kerssens build a local foundation for global change.