Artists as defenders: disability art as means to mobilise human rights

This paper analyses the work of contemporary disability artists in the United Kingdom and aims to demonstrate their ability to mobilise human rights for disabled people. This hinges on two observations: a) disability art enables the growth of rights consciousness among disabled people through the emergence of a positive disability identity and collective sensibility; b) disability art can encourage both disabled and non-disabled audiences to deconstruct their ideas of their own relation to disability.

Rhiann Holloway, April 2021