Penny for the Blind

This piece, Penny for the Blind, is a raw and powerful response to the government’s crackdown on welfare. At its centre, a silhouetted blind figure with a white cane stands inside the form of a street sign — a universal symbol twisted into a reminder of exclusion rather than protection.

The background marked a first for me. Layered into the work is the appendix from the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, a text that promised equality but so often falls short in practice. Translated into braille, the opening paragraph becomes a tactile and visual field — but here the dots are made from actual pennies, sprayed and fixed into place. By doing so, I question the value placed on disabled lives, reduced to coins and survival.

The title reflects a brutal possibility: if policies continue to strip away dignity and support, disabled people risk being pushed back into conditions reminiscent of the Victorian era — forced to beg on the streets simply to exist. Penny for the Blind is both a protest and a warning, asking viewers to confront the cost of neglect and the true meaning of human worth.