Despite Physical Challenges, Kevin Connolly Turns Bystander Stares Into Art 儘管行動不便，康納利化旁觀者的注視為藝術

To many people, as Kevin Michael Connolly traveled the world, he was many things most of them not even re-motely connected to reality.

當康納利到世界各地旅遊時，很多人對他有諸多不同的看法，其中大半在他們的現實世界中很陌生。

"This woman walked up to me, didn't say hello or anything, just said, 'Thalidomide' in a questioning tone," Connolly said. Then she told him it was a drug that had caused birth defects after it was given to pregnant mothers. "Was that you" she asked. Other people pre-sumed he was a beggar, or even a holy man. But children were different. "By and large," said Connolly, "a little kid would look at you and just go, 'Aw, wow.'"

「有個女人走到我面前，沒打招呼也沒問候，只用質疑的口吻說：〔抗癌藥〕『沙利竇邁』，」康納利說。她接著告訴他，孕婦服用這種藥會產下畸胎（胎兒先天缺陷）。「你是這個原因吧？」她問道。其他人則認定他是乞丐，或甚至是個聖人。兒童就不同了。康納利說，「大體而言，小孩會目不轉睛瞪著你，然後走開，說『噢！哇！』」

The reality about Connolly is much more remarkable than the scenarios people imagine about him especially when seen through the art of his camera, from an angle he's known for all 22 years of his life.

康納利的實際情況，遠比人們想像的種種情境要了不起得多，透過他的相機藝術所見尤其如此，這也是他22年生命中所熟悉的角度。

"I was born without legs," said Con-nolly, matter-of-factly. "This is all I've known, and to me, it's not really a big deal. I think it was called a 'sporadic birth defect,' which is basically the doc-tors saying they don't know what hap-pened."

康納利就事論事說：「我一出生就沒有腿。這就是我所知道的一切，但對我，這沒什麼大不了的。我想這是一種『偶發性畸胎』，基本上醫師也不知道出了什麼問題。」

He often travels by balancing his torso on a skateboard, and moving expertly through the streets of the cities he visits. From the skateboard, he has taken more than 32,000 photos of the stares he at-tracts. Some are displayed on an Internet site, therollingexhibition.com. They are riveting, sometimes humorous, examples of human nature in different cultures, where, with each stare, people also form quick and even fanciful interpretations of who Connolly is, and why.

旅行時，他常藉著在滑板上平衡軀幹，在他訪問的城市街道上巧妙熟練地暢行無阻。從滑板上，他對著被他吸引的目光拍了三萬兩千多張照片，有些貼在網站上: therollingexhibition.com。他們凝視著他，有時饒富興味的，代表不同文化的人性，從每一道目光，形形色色的人很快詮釋康納利到底是何許人、他為何與眾不同，有些甚至充滿奇特的想像力。

Connolly is a senior who studies film and photography at Montana State Uni-versity. He has short-cropped brown hair, good looks and an affable, open demeanor. His upper torso is fully formed, large-boned, muscular and trim. His internal organs are healthy. He re-jected the prosthetic legs with which he was fitted when he was young, because they were uncomfortable and made it difficult for him to move freely. Instead, he wears what he calls a "boot" to cover his lower body. It is a rounded device that fits perfectly around his lower torso and protects it as he moves.

康納利是蒙大拿州立大學大四學生，主修電影和攝影。他留一頭短平頭棕髮，長相端正，和藹可親，心胸開放。他上半身十分健全，骨架大，肌肉發達又很健康。他內臟器官也很健全。雖然小時曾裝義肢，但後來拒絕再裝，因為它們讓他覺得不舒服，行動又不方便。相反的，他穿著他所謂的「護墊」來罩著軀幹下半部，那是個圓形配備，剛好可以套住軀幹下面，當他走動時又可保護身體。

The freedom that characterizes his life has been a component since the begin-ning. "My parents made the decision to not put me in a wheelchair or a hospital. They just took me home." Family pho-tos from his home in Montana show a young man camping out, rock climbing and skiing so well in his custom rig, that he won a silver medal in the January 2007 X Games.

從出生，自由自在的活動就是他生活的重要元素。「父母決定不讓我坐輪椅或住院，他們直接把我帶回家。」從他在蒙大拿州老家的家庭生活照，可以看到一個年輕人用特製裝備露營、攀岩、滑雪樣樣行，他甚至在2007年1月拿下一面極限運動銀牌。

As a Montana State University stu-dent, Connolly seized the opportunity to study abroad and travel. With his skateboard, he used his time in an ex-change program in New Zealand to explore the country on his own, staying in youth hostels. Money he won in the X Games helped finance more travel in Europe. If you can imagine the reaction to Connolly, roaming through a new city on his skateboard, in a way, that was what led to an extraordinary col-lection of photographic work that be-gan on the spur of the moment in Vi-enna, Austria. "I was rolling down a street in Vienna, and had just left New Zealand, and was a bit bummed out," Connolly said. "I hadn't seen my family in about a year, and I'd left a whole group of friends behind. And so, I was by myself, having to deal with stares. I was just kind of sick of being stared at, and I was looking back with my lens."

身為蒙大拿州大學生，康納利找機會出國讀書旅遊。他靠滑板，利用紐西蘭一項交流計畫抽空自行探索這個國家，一路投宿青年旅舍。他在極限運動所贏得的獎金，幫他再轉往歐洲繼續旅行。 可以想見，當康納利坐在滑板上在一個陌生的城市漫遊會引起什麼反應。也是從奧地利維也納開始，民眾的反應促成他集結精彩的攝影傑作。康納利說：「我剛剛離開紐西蘭，在維也納街頭打轉，有點失落頹喪。我已經有一年沒有看到家人，又離開一大群朋友。因此，我孤孤單單一個人，還得應付各種好奇的眼光。我大概有點厭煩老是被人盯著看，就用鏡頭看回去。」

He snapped a photograph of a man staring at him. He liked it, and he began to routinely take pictures of people star-ing as he rolled by on his skateboard. He holds his camera low, around the edge of the skateboard. The camera is at-tached to his wrist by a buckle. The photographs Connolly captures illustrate the compulsive curiosity that, in an in-stant, can pull people out of their every-day situations to stare. "I do the same thing," said Connolly. "I'm not above that. And if I saw a no-legged guy in the street, I would stare."

他對著一個注視他的人拍下快照。他很喜歡，就開始經常對注視他坐滑板經過的人拍照，他的相機放很低，在滑板邊緣。相機並用帶扣扣在手腕上。從康納利捕捉到的照片可知，不由自主的好奇心理，可以在瞬間把人抽離日常生活情境而猛盯著人看。納利說：「我也一樣。我不見得好到哪裡，如果街上有個只有一隻腳的人，我也會盯著他看。」

People not only stared at him, but from culture to culture, they made up their own narratives about who he was. In the Ukraine, people thought he was a beggar.He was also mistaken for a holy man and a member of a carnival act. In Romania, some thought he was a gypsy. In Sarajevo, Bosnia, there was a sadness to the narratives people invented when they saw him, in a country where the sight of war victims is still all too com-mon. Many people assumed he had been injured by a bomb when he was a child, during the fierce fighting of the mid-1990s.

這些人不只目不轉睛打量他，不同的文化，也各自對他這個人編出一套故事。烏克蘭人以為他是乞丐。他也被誤以為是聖人及雜技團成員。在羅馬尼亞，有些人以為他是吉普賽人。在波士尼亞塞拉耶佛，這個戰爭受害人隨處可見的國家，講古的人看到他更編了一個悲傷的生平故事。很多人推測，1990年代中期內戰戰火猛烈時，他可能在童年時期被炸彈炸傷。

（取材自ＡＢＣ）