Staff Report 

Fashion designer and Art and Design Professor at NC State Justin LeBlanc gave a sneak preview of his Spring/Summer 2015 collection at Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum Sunday evening. 

LeBlanc, who has been deaf since birth, drew the inspiration for his collection, titled “Inaudible,” from his 2012 thesis show at the Art Institute of Chicago which shared the same name. During his thesis show, LeBlanc presented an audio and visual depiction of deaf and hearing people communicating underwater, an arena in which distortion of all types of sound is inevitable.

The theme of inaudibility was demonstrated through the show’s emphasis on the other senses (sight, touch, scent and taste) as well as the show’s general lack of sound. 

LeBlanc learned to perceive the world holistically without the addition of sound, which to most people is far from their normal way of being. Although most people can’t comprehend a world without sound, for LeBlanc, the removal of one sense resulted in a vivid reorganization of others, creating a unique worldview and an enhanced perception of space and time. 

SOURCE: CAM