Re-figuring the Visual Representation of Disability

UK governmental policy regarding disability (e.g. The Disability Discrimination Act, 2005) and associated legislation has potentially strengthened the quest for equality of opportunity. However, I feel there is a gap between that which is enshrined in law and the application on legislation in everyday life, so while greater understanding of human rights and a push for cultural change have been characteristic of policy, publicly available visual material appears to contradict such messages. In order to explore this contradiction my presentation will focus on visual portrayals of disability taken from online university prospectuses. In doing so I present a feminist (re)interpretation of this material to address the question: What do visual representations of disability look like and what messages do they convey?