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Episode details

Radio 4,05 Nov 2020,28 mins

Could being visually impaired enhance an artist’s work?

Front Row

Available for over a year

Could being visually impaired enhance an artist’s work? We’ll discuss that with Richard Butchins who’s made a BBC 4 documentary - The Disordered Eye - arguing just that. He looked at the work of artists who are known to have had low vision, such as Degas and Monet and those who were blind like Sargi Mann. And heard from contemporary artists like landscape painter Keith Salmon and sensory photographer Sally Booth. And we’ll hear from the British-Lebanese poet Claudine Toutungi about her new collection - Two Tongues – full of poignant and funny poems about identity, language and how her own low vision has changed her world. Plus Ethiopian-American novelist Maaza Mengiste is the latest subject of the Front Row Booker Prize Book Group. Three guests from around the world will join the author to discuss her Booker-shortlisted novel The Shadow King, about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Oliver Jones Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

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