◉ 001 | Blindfolded — Why We Look, but Don’t See?

I come from a world split in two. One eye sharp, the other blurred. One place I was born, another where I rebuilt myself. One life I lived for others, another I carved out for myself.

I was born in the Balkans—a place of beauty and contradiction, history and weight. A region where old and new, past and future collide. But I left, crossing continents, trading the familiar for the unknown. One life I was given, another I built.

When I was two, I stabbed my own eye with scissors. An accident, but also a shift in reality. My vision was never the same, and neither was my family. My mother carried the weight of that moment for decades before she forgave herself. The injury was severe—only 14% of my sight remained. The world through that eye became nothing but blurs and light.

The doctors couldn’t fix my vision, but they had another idea: cover my healthy eye so the damaged one could grow stronger. Even pirates covered the damaged eye, but they wanted me to do the opposite.

My father, ever resourceful, crafted a shell from metal. He bent it, shaped it, smoothed the edge so I could blink freely. Then, he wrapped it tightly with rigid brown strapping tape. Decades later, I can still smell that tape. Feel its rough texture between my fingers.

So at the youngest age, they slapped a blindfold over my good eye. Of course, I fought it. I was a restless kid—I wanted to see. I cheated, peeking around the edge of the shell. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t fucking see. My mother would say, “Dooon’t you dare!” But how could I not? I was being forced into blindness.

Maybe that was the first time I was blindfolded. But it wasn’t the last.

For years, I was turning my head from the truth. I studied engineering for nine years, forcing myself into a world where I didn’t belong.

I did the same in relationships. I stayed in them way too long—clinging to familiarity, avoiding discomfort, convincing myself things were fine when they weren’t. I ignored the cracks, the red flags, the gut feeling that whispered, this isn’t it. I held on out of habit, out of fear, out of the belief that letting go meant failure.

Then, I took the blindfold off.

At 31, I tore it all down and started over. I packed my life into a suitcase, moved to Australia, and began again—with no safety net, no guarantees, and two small kids. But for the first time, I chose.

Now, I create. Now, I see. And through my work, I help others see too.

I come from contrast—light and shadow, clarity and distortion, leaving and arriving. I come from the in-between.

And that’s what my art is—a way of reconciling opposites, finding harmony in the unexpected, telling stories in the space between.

I took off the blindfold, and I’ve never looked back.

What about you?

What would happen if you did the same?

What could you create, discover, become?

Photographs by Ant-on J.