Aphasia is a language disorder, often the result of a stroke or injury to the brain. Individuals with aphasia may experience difficulty understanding the speech of others, expressing oneself, and the manifold ways loss of language masks one’s competence.   

My Voice, Through My Lens was collectively envisioned and shaped by Judith Leitner and Lead Aphasia Institute Staff. We designed the workshop series and culminating exhibition as a  creative vehicle that would take each participant beyond loss of words, and, through the language of photography, and thus enable “visual storytelling”.  Furthermore, we understood how engagement in a shared, meaningful art-making process would also empower communication each artist’s personal ‘way of seeing’ through the art of self-portraiture, seeing one’s self’s evolution as a creative thinker, and most importantly, how one can live successfully with aphasia, and thus renew one’s sense of future and possibility.