Book review
In recent years disability representation in museums and their role in the interpretation of disability has been a growing area of debate. This has led to a number of projects, areas of research and new ways of thinking.
Re-Presenting Disability is a timely and long overdue publication. It brings together 20 researchers, practitioners and academics from different disciplines, institutions and cultural contexts to explore issues surrounding the cultural representation of disabled people.
The book offers diverse perspectives and is divided into three sections: New Ways of Seeing; Interpretive Journeys and Experiments; and Unsettling Practices. The contributors offer fresh ways of interrogating and understanding contemporary representational practices. This enables you to explore the myriad of topics by picking individual chapters of interest, making it easier to digest some of the complex issues raised.
A key area that is often a subject for debate in the disability rights movement is the use of the social model of disability rather than focusing on the medical impairment. The University of Leicester’s Rethinking Disability Representation project involved nine museums and explored alternative approaches to representing disability.
The projects included the Life Beyond the Label exhibition, in which Colchester Museums took the decision to use only the social model of disability and not to include any object that had a medical context.
This book doesn’t shy away from medicine and medical history though. In Histories of Disability and Medicine, Julie Anderson and Lisa O’Sullivan highlight the Science Museum’s online educational resource Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine. The objects are used to show how medical practice has developed over time as well as changes in attitudes towards disability.
The book also explores the important relationship between war and disability. Ana Carden-Coyne opens this debate in Ghosts in the War Museum, in which she suggests that museums need to be brave in tackling these issues.
War museums traditionally focus on the tragedy of war; the victims are akin to a memorial for the dead. But the focus is shifting to the social impact on survivors of war and people disabled by war.
The book also highlights issues of disability representation from around the world. A common theme is portrayals, particularly in the media, of disabled people as victims or in need of charity, and their desire to challenge and overcome these perceptions.
In Victoria Phiri’s See No Evil, she says that although there is progress with disability rights, cultural beliefs in Zambia mean that disability is often seen as a curse or punishment.
This presents huge challenges for museums in how to represent disability while recognising the cultural issues. This and other examples show that we cannot impose our own set of values on another culture and that different cultures and values do exist.
Numerous images in the book feature disabled people and illustrate some of the points discussed. For example the painting The Blind Men of Jericho from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery shows Jesus restoring sight to a blind man.
This gave rise to debate over the idea that disability is something that needs to be cured, rather than being accepted. Other images challenge perceptions, such as Marc Quinn’s statue of Alison Lapper Pregnant. The furore surrounding the statue of a naked disabled pregnant woman shows there is still a struggle to accept disability and difference.
This is just a sample of the issues covered in Re-Presenting Disability. There are many more thought-provoking ones covering areas such as identity, body imagery and sexuality. This book does not give answers but highlights issues and raises questions. Explore any chapter and you will challenge your own practices and ways of thinking.
Sophie Weaver is the access officer at Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service