Reconstructing the Self: Photography, education and disability

Abstract

Despite the centrality of photography to an understanding of the self and others in contemporary culture, its educational significance has been largely ignored. This paper examines the potential of photographic work as a means of exploring and reconstructing understandings of disability in an educational context. The particular empirical focus is a short project in the context of a Foundation arts course. It is argued that the practical work produced by students on the project enabled them to understand how their identities are constructed within photographic discourses such as charity advertising and family photography, and to begin to reconstruct new understandings of the self. It is also argued that this goes beyond progressivist pedagogies or photography as a kind of art therapy.