Experiential exhibition Dialogue in the Dark is helping the sighted understand the challenges of a visually impaired life, writes Andrew James

Social assistance and social acceptance are not mutually exclusive in our society, but nor do they go hand in hand. While there are government initiatives and laws to protect and aid the physically impaired, the gap between the intention and the reality can be very wide indeed. Enter Dialogue in the Dark (DiD), an exhibition that aims to foster acceptance of, and empathy with, Hong Kong’s estimated 76,000 visually impaired people by giving the sighted a taste of how the other half live. DiD also looks to highlight the talents of the ‘differently abled’ by creating a scenario where the blind become the leaders and the seeing learn to cope without the use of their eyes in a completely blacked-out world.

Navigating Hong Kong’s streets can be a bloodsport at the best of times; the thought of doing so blind is frightening. Rather than take people to the streets, however, DiD have recreated familiar Hong Kong locales in a 10,000 sq ft space in Mei Foo, with pitch black rooms outfitted with heavily-curtained doors. Although you’ll never see these places, you can hear, smell and feel them as you are guided through by sight-impaired staff.

The origins of Dialogue in the Dark stretch back to 1986, when founder Andreas Heinecke was tasked with creating a training program for a colleague who had recently lost his eyesight. The experience introduced Heinecke to the needs – and talents – of a subset of society that was largely marginalised. In 1988, the first Dialogue in the Dark exhibit opened in Hamburg, Germany, and by 1996 DiD had gone international, gaining an ongoing role in the World Economic Forum from 2007. For the opening of the Hong Kong version, Heinecke has sent Antonio Origani, a freelance DiD instructor, and Daniela Dimitrova, a full-time employee with the Dialogue Social Enterprise group, to train visually impaired ‘guides’.

“As soon as someone enters the darkness guided by this blind person, they understand themselves better,” says Origani, who became partially blind in his teens and runs a legal practice in his hometown of Rome when not training DiD instructors. “[The exhibition] was a turning point in my life.”

“The hidden agenda of the training,” says Dimitrova, DiD’s manager of human resources, “is revealing the ability of the human being.” The Bulgarian, who has master’s degrees in translation and international social business, says that they “use it as a platform to reveal to the public what it is to be so-called ‘disabled’.” They also hope to demonstrate that the physically-impaired can make a useful contribution in the workplace.

Stephanie Cheung, deputy director of the exhibition, points out that even in socially progressive Germany, the employment rate for disabled people is as low as 15 per cent. Cheung estimates the employment rate of disabled people in Hong Kong is significantly lower, at less than 7 per cent. Any statistics involving the disabled in our commmunity are difficult to determine, however, as most are based on self-reporting.

Although Hong Kong may appear to have a socially conscious infrastructure in place, with MTR station floors mapped with guide tiles and auditory street-crossing signals, the reality can be less encouraging. “What I have felt [in Hong Kong] is the consciousness of being disabled,” says Origani. “I couldn’t see many disabled people on the streets. And there’s a sense of discrimination.” The basis of this discrimation, continues Origani, is rooted in an underestimation of the capacity of those we perceive as disabled, and “Dialogue in the Dark reveals those abilities.”

While the exhibit aims to raise awareness and employment of the blind, Origani concludes that the experience is for everyone to learn that “if you know your limits, you’ll recognise your potential.”

Dialogue in the Dark opens Saturday 20. Shop 215, 2/F The Household Centre, Nob Hill, 8 King Lai Path, Mei Foo, 2891 0438; www.dialogue-in-the-dark.hk.

Win tickets to Dialogue in the Dark at timeout.com.hk/getthis.