Imagine living in a world where letters and numbers are perceived in colour, a world in which it is easy to remember people’s names because each one always has a specific colour - Anna is red, and Mary is deep dark blue, each colour associated with the first letter of the name.
For Dasha Pears, this is part her world and for a long time she assumed that everyone else shared the same visual experience. Then, three years ago, Dasha realized that none of her friends or family perceived letters and numbers in the same way as she did, except for one person, Jane Kristoferson. Unlike Dasha, Jane has been aware of her visual connection between numbers and colours from an early age.
Both women have, what is known as, grapheme-colour synaesthesia which means that they involuntarily experience colours when thinking about letters, numbers or words. Although the colours associated with letters and numbers vary from one individual to another, studies have shown that there are some commonalities amongst synesthetes when it comes to letters and colours. For example ‘A’ is likely to be red, ‘C’ yellow, and ‘O’ white.
Dasha, an award-winning artist currently based in Helsinki, Finland, and Jane, an architect, interior designer, photo stylist, artist, and educator got together to create a three year long project entitled, ‘Synesthetic Letters’ which they funded themselves and which was shot across two countries.
For Dasha and Jane, the aim of the project was to illustrate that, “The existence of synaesthesia proves that many things in our objective reality largely depend on our perceptions and perspectives. In other words, we don't see the world around us the same universal way, so the existence of universal notions for "right" and "wrong" can and should be challenged.”
The project therefore serves to remind us that, “We’re not the same, but we are equal. By taking a new perspective on the world around you, you learn and ultimately become a better human being, better than you were yesterday. We feel that with every person who learns about inborn differences in perceptions there will be more tolerance, camaraderie, and unity in the world. Synaesthesia can teach us the necessity of being patient and tolerant with others, as their way of seeing the world can be quite different and not even by choice, but by ‘nature’s design.’”