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Disability, education and prejudice
In the 1960s and 1970s, thalidomide survivors had to fight for a proper education. If they weren’t brought up in institutions, they were often viewed as objects of curiosity, encountering verbal and sometimes physical abuse, both at school and in the world beyond.
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Performing my disability
Caroline Butterwick explores the idea of disability as performative, and the pressure to act out what we think others expect.
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Disability in the post-pandemic world
Disabled people have suffered more than most during Covid-19, but there is still a chance to build a kinder society. Dolly Sen explores whether we will come together, or allow more brutal disparities to develop in the worsening recession.
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Disabled musicians and the fight to perform
Music might be the universal language, but unfortunately it doesn’t come with universal access. London-based artist Miss Jacqui discusses the barriers to her career with Jamie Hale.
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Caring for our Disabled daughter in lockdown
Jane Holmes talks about the challenges of caring for her Disabled daughter while working and trying to stay safe during the pandemic.
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How hospital care fails disabled bodies
Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Challenging stereotypes of people with learning disabilities
Explore the voices and photographs of people with and without learning disabilities who have worked with creative arts company Heart n Soul over the last 30 years.
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Why gene editing can never eliminate disability
In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.
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“People see the disability but forget the ability”
I’m a disabled Asian woman, and mother of four. I’m trying to show people that we have to talk about disability if we want things to change.
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Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability
By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.
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Lying low for lockdown and beyond
For Liz Carr the chances of catching Covid-19 are the same as for anyone else, but as a Disabled person she's at much greater risk of not getting the treatment she needs if she falls ill.
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How to thrive in lockdown
Gareth Berliner shares how being a Disabled person has given him the resilience and motivation to find a new creative challenge during lockdown.
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Society, not Covid-19, makes us vulnerable
Rick Burgess coped with the death of his mother in February 2020 by immersing himself in the task of protecting his community from Covid-19 and challenging the government's failure to protect and support elderly and Disabled people during the pandemic.
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Our Covid complicity
Athena Stevens thought she had a cold that she tried to ignore, but it turned out to be Covid-19. Here she reflects on how we have all put ourselves and others at risk with the choices we’ve made during this pandemic.
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Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.
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Words of hope and anger
Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Pum Dunbar’s living lessons
Read the ‘legends’ that give insight into Pum Dunbar’s creative process while producing her recent series of collages.
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Walk, interrupted
By listing all the things that get in her way, Caroline Butterwick wants to create an embodied experience of disability and convince you that inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.
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To write in golden photographs
When Rachel Genn’s brother disappeared, a newspaper article led the family to his bedside. But the accident he’d barely survived was not to be the last tragedy in his life.
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Good animals, bad humans?
Could an animal be more evolved than a human? Victorian psychologists thought that in some cases the answer could be ‘yes’.
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The freedom to provoke
Jamie Hale talks to performer and director Emma Selwyn about the joy of creating work that celebrates, rather than suppresses, autistic behaviours.
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Notes on need
Writing about bodies, and hearing the stories of others’ bodies, Johanna Hedva also heard, over and over, how people blame themselves – and are encouraged to do this – for illness and disability.
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Why the truth is better than a happy ending
Caroline Butterwick often uses lived experience to inform her journalism, but she’s discovered a tension between the truth and stories that will sell.
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What writing myself has revealed
Caroline Butterwick talks to two creators about how lived experience feeds their art, and reflects on her own year of writing about her life.
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A walk through other people’s expectations
The steep path isn’t the only thing Caroline Butterwick has to navigate on her Lakeland hike. Always aware of other people’s expectations, she continually monitors how her disability might seem to strangers.