Invisible Symphony by Jorge Mónaco

Founded in 1947, Argentina’s National Symphonic Band of the Blind is composed exclusively of blind musicians. Its repertoire, which includes classical music and Argentine folk songs, is renowned for its exceptional technical and expressive quality. This photographic project was inspired by the band’s message of inclusivity and of music as a tool for social change. This project features diptychs that combine images of braille musical scores with portraits of the musicians who interpret them. The scores, designed to be read through touch, lose their functionality when photographed, becoming visual symbols that reveal their form but conceal their meaning. These objects, illuminated with dramatic lighting that highlights the braille’s raised dots and casts deep shadows, evoke a tension between the visible and the invisible. In contrast, ‘the musician’s portrait restores humanity to this abstraction, reminding us that music, though intangible, resides within the performer’s body and memory. These diptychs thus explore the paradox between the invisibility of sound and the materiality of language, transforming absence into a symbolic presence that is imbued with meaning and significance.’