New Acquisitions: Two Documentary Photography Books about Disabilities

Zip zip my brain harts by Angela Buckland is the result of a collaboration between Buckland (a photographer) and Human Sciences Research Council researchers concerned with disability issues. Angie Buckland’s remarkable photographs, interspersed with challenging text, are a unique expression of the fullness of human experience, with all its joy, pain and confusion.

There is a tendency for disability to be a secret. The challenges that face families of people with disabilities are also often hidden away. Part of the reason is that disability is still largely seen as a shame, a disgrace, and a source of stigma. Angie Buckland, the mother of a disabled child, Nikki, provides us with a personal account of how she has dealt with the challenge of disability.

Some of the key issues considered are: what if disability was considered ordinary or everyday? What if disability were seen as just one among many differences that there already are between people? What if disability were defined not simply as a physical or mental medical state, but were understood to be a societal problem – in terms of the reaction of other people to disability, or how geographical and social spaces can be discriminatory?

These photographs hope to open up a space for dialogue about the issue of disability and also to provide families and healthcare professionals with a compassionate, understanding and inspiring guide to ordinary people’s real experiences.

Two good feet : a photographic documentary of physically challenged children by Marc Yves Regis The people of Haiti are some of the poorest in the world and the children of Haiti are the poorest of the poor. In addition, malnutrition and poverty have led to many children being unable to thrive. Those who are born physically or mentally handicapped people are often kept out of sight, the most vulnerable members of a population of handicapped people that numbers 800,000. Haitian-American photographer, Marc-Yves Regis, went back to Haiti to find these invisible children. He visited St. Vincent's Hospital and School for the Handicapped and for five years he chronicled the lives of the children there. His photos reveal the children's extraordinary tenacity and with what dexterity they use their "good" limbs. Contained in the book, with the 70 colour photographs, are Regis's reflections on what he saw and the words of the children themselves as they prove to themselves and all who see them that they want neither pity nor condescension but respect and the right to enjoy their lives.