A gripping new audio drama examining the subtle and insidious effect of domestic abuse on the blind and visually impaired (VI) community launches today (March 4).
Produced by Extant, a group of professional visually impaired artists, ‘Unseen’ illuminates the unique ways that domestic abuse impacts on blind and VI people in their homes and intimate relationships, from love-bombing to gaslighting, care to coercive control.
Extant – the opposite of extinct – was the inspired name chosen for a professional performing arts company, formed to redress the invisibility of visually impaired artists by creating unique and innovative artistic experiences.
Through the stories of two visually impaired protagonists, Unseen, uses empathy, hope and candour to raise awareness of domestic abuse and asks; where do we turn when the ones who are supposed to love and care for us are the very people we’re most afraid of?
The work is a creative response to the Unseen Report by the Vision Foundation, which highlighted the inaccessibility of domestic abuse services to visually impaired people, despite the fact that disabled people are nearly three times more likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled people.
“Extant is proud to continue its trend of dramatizing report outcomes with this new important piece, funded and originally commissioned by the Vision Foundation,” said Maria Oshodi, Extant’s Artistic Director.
“Even though the new government ‘Flee Fund’ released to help those experiencing domestic violence is welcomed, for many disabled people in this situation, a host of other factors makes escape more difficult. However, we hope that Unseen will uncover this and have great impact, as other recent dramatisations of social injustices such as the Post Office scandal have had on the population.”
‘Unseen’ is available to listen to at https://extant.org.uk/productions/unseen/
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