Hollywood actor donates iris photo

A unique signed photo of Bond villain Javier Bardem’s iris will be auctioned to raise funds for the Eyes of the World Foundation, which fights avoidable blindness. The photo will be delivered to the winning bidder with a digital non-fungible token (NFT) for a starting price of $9,000 (£9,740). NFTs are certificates that show who owns a digital item.

The auction, via www.irisesoftheworld.org, runs from 1pm 29 September until 5pm 6 October. The money raised will fund projects in the Sahara, Mozambique, Bolivia and Mali. 

The Foundation plans to hold more auctions of celebrity NFTs and printed photographs, under the Iris of the World campaign. It seeks to defend the universal right to vision and raise awareness of deficiencies in eye care in the most vulnerable areas of the world.

Javier said: “To be able to see, to be able to hear, to be able to touch or to be able to feel are things that we don’t appreciate until we lose them. To be able to feel all the emotions that happen through sight and have an impact on us is an emotional and spiritual phenomenon.” 

Foundation director Anna Barba said: “Javier has been very generous in sharing something very personal and exclusive: his iris. It is a sign of identity, a witness of unique moments that can now be owned by whoever wins the bid thanks to this inspiring, original and unique photograph. 

“The right to vision should not be subject to the availability of the economic resources of a person or a country. It is a question of giving sight back to those thousands of people without resources who suffer from serious eye problems that can be prevented or treated if action is taken in time”, she added.

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) estimates that 90% of cases of visual impairment could be prevented or cured. Eyes of the World puts the cost of an eye check-up at $7 and a cataract operation at $7. Yet 161 million people have uncorrected refractive errors, 100 million suffer from cataracts and a further 510 million have difficulty seeing up close.