2025: CRIPPING THE LENS

GENDER, DISABILITY & THE POLITICS OF VISIBILITY

To crip the lens is to follow in the footsteps of generations of disability artists, activists, and cultural workers who have refused invisibility. It is to bend the camera away from voyeurism and toward resistance; to unlearn normative aesthetics in favour of narratives forged from pain, pleasure, protest, care, and survival. It means troubling what is considered ‘legible’, ‘valuable’, or ‘beautiful’, and asking whose stories get to be told, and how.

Around the world, disability rights are being rolled back, through stalled legislation, shrinking social protections, and a resurgence of institutionalising approaches. From welfare reforms in the UK to weakened civil rights enforcement in the US, and delayed anti-discrimination laws in Asia and Latin America, hard-won gains are under threat. Cripping the Lens responds to this moment of uncertainty by centring those most often erased from dominant visual narratives: disabled people across the gender spectrum.

In today’s cultural landscape, disability remains among the least visible and least understood dimensions of identity. When it does appear, it is frequently flattened into stereotype, tragedy, or token. This exhibition insists otherwise. It asks: What happens when disabled people claim the frame? Cripping the Lens invites us to look again; to reframe, reimagine, and radically re-envision the stories we tell about bodies, identities, and the politics of being seen.

This exhibition is the outcome of the This is Gender: Gender & Disability Global Open Call. Spanning continents, gender identities, lived experiences, and visual strategies, the works in this collection explore how gender and disability entangle, disrupt, and reconstitute one another. Gender shapes how disability is read; disability reshapes how gender is lived. Yet these overlapping realities are routinely excluded from our galleries, archives, media, and policy spaces. Even within our own This is Gender collection, we recognised a profound absence, an erasure that the open call and this exhibition directly confronts.

Here you will find meditations on chronic illness, expressions of queer kinship, documentation of systemic neglect, and declarations of joy. You will find resistance to the sanitised, the inspirational, the pitiful. Each image was selected by a panel of disabled artists and visual culture experts to ground the exhibition in peer-led, disability-informed curatorial practice.

Cripping the Lens is not just an invitation to look differently. It is a demand to reckon with what is at stake when disabled lives, especially those shaped by intersecting systems of gender, race, and class, are erased, misrepresented, or ignored. At a time when commitments to building fairer, more equitable institutions are being rolled back and access is reframed as excess, this exhibition asserts that inclusion is not a luxury, it is a matter of justice. To crip the lens is to confront the systems that render some lives disposable, and to insist on futures in which disabled people are not merely seen, but centred, supported, and celebrated.

SYSTEMS OF POWER, STRUCTURES OF EXCLUSION

Winning image:

WHEN THE MOUNTAIN WON’T MOVE, HEALTHCARE MUST, (Banawe, Ifugao, Philippines. 2023) Gina C. Meneses.

As dusk falls amid the steep slopes of the Banaue Rice Terraces, a woman receives care. Her masked face glowing with the quiet relief that help has come at last, reaching her through the gentle hands of a health worker.

What the judges say: ‘The dramatic use of light imbues this image with an almost painterly quality, elevating the everyday into the sublime. Visually arresting, the work powerfully reflects key themes of the competition- access, care, health, and respect- rendered through a lens of intimate realism.’

What happens when the very systems that shape our lives—education, healthcare, employment, and law —are built to exclude?

For disabled people, exclusion is often not a failure of the system, but its design. Institutional frameworks routinely sideline disabled individuals, embedding inequality through inaccessible schooling, discriminatory hiring practices, inadequate healthcare provision, and punitive welfare regimes. These exclusions are rarely spectacular. They unfold in policy loopholes, bureaucratic indifference, and infrastructures that privilege certain bodies while denying others.

In this section, artists confront the deep bias embedded in our institutions and imagine otherwise. From the erasure of disabled women in work and education, to the fraught performance of masculinity in militarised and uniformed roles, these works hold up a mirror to systems that marginalise and celebrate radical reimaginings. Lush portraits of peer-led care, disabled-run businesses, and transformative mentorship offer glimpses of what equity might look like. 

A Sudanese woman stands facing the camera, draped in a translucent plastic veil and holding a bouquet of white flowers. Her stance and attire evoke a bridal aesthetic—but the materials and context disrupt any sense of celebration. The veil suggests not just ceremony, but also containment, displacement, or medical control.This image is part of The House is Black, a performative photography project exploring the intersection of gender, disability, and migration through the lived experience of Hawa, a Sudanese asylum seeker and single mother in Tel Aviv. Inspired by Forough Farrokhzad’s 1963 film of the same name, which documented life in a leper colony, the series uses poetic and symbolic language to foreground often-unseen realities. Working collaboratively with the artist, Hawa becomes both subject and storyteller. The project challenges dominant portrayals of refugee women, shifting the focus from passive victimhood to the complex labour of caregiving, survival, and resistance. It draws attention to invisible disabilities—both the physical toll of care work and the emotional burden of displacement—and demands a deeper reckoning with how gender, health, and migration intersect.
THE HOUSE IS BLACK, (Haifa, Israel. 2025), Vera Gailis
Natalia's bold, graphic poster centres a pink, abstracted figure as a symbol for all bodies in the ongoing fight for diversity and women’s rights. With multiple eyes gazing outward, one fist clenched and the other raised in openness, the figure holds tension and power.
FROM OUR DIVERSITY AND STRUGGLE, (Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2023),
Natalia Volpe
Behind the white bars of a holding cell, a group of women stare outward, their gaze direct and unflinching. Each woman lives with a different form of disability- motor, visual, or intellectual.
EL ETORNO DISCAPCITANTE NOS MANTIENE ENCERRADAS,
(Mexico City, Mexico. 2025), Jenny Bautista Media
A person screams, her hands clutching her neck, her face encased in a fabric bag. Here, the murky, dark hue of the background and contorted gestures evoke a visceral sense of pain, trauma, and suffocation.
DROWNING IN THE FIGHT,
(Tamarin, Mauritius. 2023),
Neco Nahaar Abdul Carim and Hana Telvave
Julie strides down the runway wearing outfits by Hellen wanjiru Njengam, Designer of ‘Pocket Pennie’s swerve’ during Kibera Fashion Week, her gaze steady, her presence commanding.
RESILIENCE, BEAUTY AND REPRESENTATION IN KIBERA FASHION WEEK, (Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. 2024), Anwar Sadat Swaka
In a moment of quiet confrontation, a man gazes into the mirror- his stance grounded, his expression unreadable. On the sink lie his weapon and uniformed effects.
REFLECTIONS OF IDENTITY AND CHALLENGING GENDER NORMS IN UNIFORMED PROFESSIONS, (Antipolo City, Rizal, Philippines. 2025), Maria Pilar Cases
Nikki, a wheelchair technician at Tahanan Walang Hagdanan, works alongside a male colleague. Both are deep in concention.
EMPOWERED WHEELS: INNOVATION THAT EMBRACES EVERYONE, (Metro Manila, Philippines. 2025)
Luciano Santiago Abadis
Kodjo, a 14-year-old boy in a wheelchair, sits with quiet purpose in a makeshift classroom at the Orione Center for children with disabilities. Caught mid-action as he assists a peer with homework, his presence radiates a calm, pedagogical authority. The composition, intimate and gently distanced, offers the viewer an unstaged glimpse into a moment of mutual care and solidarity.
KINDNESS,(Bombouaka, Togo. 2019), Antonio Aragon Renuncio

CLAIMING SPACE, SHAPING PLACE

Winning image:

THE PAST IN YOUR HANDS, (London, England. 2024,) Jaime Prada

A pair of hands, delicate and expressive, reach out from the darkness to touch the face of an ancient Egyptian sculpture. The blind woman engages in a rare moment of multisensory access during a touch tour at the British Museum. All else in the photograph is shadowed, drawing attention to her hands as tools of perception, memory, and connection.

What the judges say: ‘The hands dominate the frame, contorted yet graceful, resembling tree branches reaching through darkness. The visual emphasis on her hands- her tools for navigation- transforms the image into a powerful meditation on touch, accessibility, and embodied knowledge.’

Space is never passive. It is structured, contested, and deeply political.

Whether designed with intent or neglect, space reflects the values of those in power, and often excludes those whose bodies, movements, or perceptions fall outside normative design. For disabled people, space is not simply something to move through, it is something to navigate, resist, and sometimes remake.

This section traces that negotiation: from the hard edges of urban infrastructure to the quiet intimacy of interior worlds. Here, hands map history, bodies press against borders, and a room becomes a refuge.

Moving across geographies and scales, the artists expose space as both material and metaphor: a terrain of control and a site of possibility. Through their lenses, we’re asked not only who space is built for, but what it could become when designed with care, creativity, and accessibility at its core. We are encouraged to think spatially and politically, to see access not just as a feature of place, but as a condition for justice.

A figure confronts the camera head-on, their gaze unwavering. Over their head, a clear plastic bag, at once suffocating and delicate, like a veil fashioned from constraint. The play of shadow distorts the body behind them, casting an echo of their form that is both haunting and poetic.
THE AIR IS NOT FOR US, (Batumi, Georgia. 2025), Tekle Gulordava
Seated at the centre of a long, straight road, Íñigo meets the camera’s gaze head-on. Flanked by dense greenery, his presence is grounded, quiet, and resolute.
IÑI, (Spain,Catalunya, Delta de Llobregat. 2022), Luca Gaetano Pira

Ruby Kaftan, 20, poses confidently in her bedroom wearing her favourite blue princess dress. Her hands on her hip, she radiates self-assurance and agency. A writer, illustrator, and fashion designer, Ruby uses creativity to shape a world that reflects her identity on her own terms.
RUBY, (Syracuse, New York, USA. 2025), Md Zobayer Hossain Joati

Photographs of the photographer's childhood, Hindu and Buddhist flags, and a hosts of memories and momentos clutter the bright green wall.
FAITH AND TIME, (Sri Lanka. 2022), Mahendra Dhammika
Husnah powers through the water in a strong front stroke, her face partially submerged as she swims straight toward us. Bubbles rise from her mouth, and her movement radiates strength and determination. Though she has a partially amputated arm, nothing holds her back. Swimming has become a form of freedom for Husnah, as she explains; “Swimming was for me an escape from being really shy. I was always hiding my disability, because people look at me weirdly when they see my arm. So I’d always wear a sweater the whole day, even when it was hot, so people couldn’t see my hand. But when I started swimming, I learned to be more confident about myself.”
HUSNAH KUKUNDAKWE, (Kampala, Uganda. 2023), Marijn Fidder
Captured on 35mm film during a historic Deep South snowstorm, this image shows Uhuru building a snow ma’am, reclaiming joy while reckoning with the inaccessibility of climate change. Snow packs into the wheels of his chair, a quiet reminder that extreme weather, made more frequent by climate crisis, further exposes the failures of ableist, racist, and transphobic public infrastructure. The grainy texture and subdued tones evoke a diaristic intimacy, grounding this moment of Black joy in a landscape shaped by both beauty and systemic neglect.
SNOWED IN, (New Orleans, USA. 2025), Jordiana Carroll

RELATIONS OF CARE, ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Winning image:

ACOMPAÑAMIENTO Y CARIÑO, (Mexico City, Mexico. 2025), Jenny Bautista Media

In cinematic black and white, Isa and Tavo are caught in a moment of uninhibited embrace. Wearing only their underwear, they hold each other closely, their faces pressed together in quiet intimacy.

What the judges say: ‘The unguarded nature of the embrace, captured in rich monochrome, elevates the photograph beyond voyeurism. It is a portrait of trust, resilience, and quiet defiance, an assertion that love, intimacy, and care belong to all bodies.’

Care is one of the most contested terrains of disability politics.

Often framed as something done to disabled people, typically by able-bodied others, and filtered through gendered assumptions of duty, sacrifice, and dependence. This narrow lens reduces disabled life to passivity and obscures the rich, reciprocal networks of care that disabled communities build every day. In this section, care is reclaimed, not as burden or obligation, but as a practice of agency, intimacy, and collective survival.

These works explore how disability and gender together shape the ways we love, parent, desire, and sustain one another. They trace the architectures of chosen family, the quiet strength of interdependence, and the deep ties forged through shared experience. Here, care becomes a radical act, a refusal of the systems that isolate, devalue, and pathologise. Care is not just support, it is strategy, resistance, and world-building on terms defined by disabled people themselves.

Framed by a constellation of hands with diverse skin tones and patterns, including his own, the subject with vitiligo meets the camera with quiet assurance. In this moment of intimate self-support, the photograph affirms the strength found in tenderness and the beauty of variation.By centring gestures of care and connection, the image challenges narrow ideals of masculinity and conventional beauty. It invites us to consider how identity is shaped not only by visible difference, but by the networks of solidarity, internal and external, that allow us to be fully seen.
ONE OF US, (Nairobi, Kenya. 2024), Phelix Owiny
This portrait of Diane, created through a fusion of her rapid thoughts and digital manipulation, celebrates her life and the skin that has witnessed and recorded it.
DIANE GOLDIE, BORN 1964, (London, England. 2025), Jonathan Armour
Kai and Irene sit closely together, enveloped in a deep embrace. Irene presses their face into Kai’s chest, who cradles them with steady, protective care. Their bodies fold into each other, creating a powerful sense of intimacy, trust, and grounding.
HOLDING SPACE, (London, England. 2024),
Jaime Prada
Macy is lifted high by two loved ones, their body framed against open sky. The gesture is one of intimacy and strength—a moment of vulnerability met with unwavering support.
STANDING ON THE PODIUM, (Sydney, Australia. 2025), Macy Torrington
Arms lifted high and spinning around their partners, dancers in vibrant costumes fill the frame with movement and colour. Captured mid-performance at the Yosakoi Festival in Kochi Prefecture, Japan, this image radiates sheer, infectious joy.The Yosakoi Festival, held every summer, is a celebration of dance open to all, where teams including disabled performers take to the streets alongside others. In this photograph, there are no divisions, no qualifiers, only collective energy, rhythm, and pride. The scene invites us not just to observe but to join: to celebrate movement, connection, and the transformative power of dance.By centring disabled dancers within a mainstream cultural event, the image challenges assumptions about participation, embodiment, and belonging. It reminds us that spaces of joy and expression must be accessible to all, not as an exception, but as a vital part of community life.
WE TOO… CAN DANCE, (Kochi Prefecture, Japan. 2024), Leli Hesti
Novi smiles broadly as she supports Ari as she moves across the room.

NOVI, CHORUS OF LIGHT, (Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 2024), Ryan Andrew

A father works at his cluttered desk from his wheelchair, focused and composed, while his young son plays nearby. The scene is filled with quiet, everyday warmth, a depiction of work, parenthood, and care unfolding side by side.
DISABILITY DOES NOT PREVENT YOU FROM BEING A PARENT, (Pszczyna, Poland. 2024),
Jacek Cislo

THE BODYMIND AS ARCHIVE

Winning image:

FRAGMENTED FACES, (New Dehli, India. – 2021), Hardeep Singh

“Fragmented Faces” is a digital artwork that explores Deaf and gendered identity, capturing the silent struggle for selfhood. Through layered gestures and fragmented forms, it reflects how Deaf and nonconforming gender identities are embodied, often shaped by systems that fail to recognise or accommodate them.

What the judges say: ‘This printed work thoughtfully references sign language, using it as both subject and structure to explore alternative, embodied modes of communication. The hands partially obscure the face, drawing attention to gesture as a primary site of expression. The composition’s patterned and abstracted form echoes textile design, reinforcing the work’s engagement with language as something felt, seen, and performed rather than spoken. A compelling meditation on how the body itself becomes a medium of meaning./

The bodymind is archive, instrument, battleground, and guide.

In this section, artists turn inward, treating the bodymind not as a site of limitation, but as a source of knowledge, resistance, and transformation.

These works explore embodiment in all its complexity: as memory, boundary, expression, and terrain. Some images pulse with pleasure or pride, others with fatigue, estrangement, or grief. Together, they resist fixed narratives, revealing embodiment as shifting, sensate, and deeply political.

Here, gender is not static, it is felt through pain, performed through gesture, and negotiated through skin, texture, weight, and touch. Across photography, abstraction, and performance, these artists make visible the intimate, ongoing negotiations between flesh, identity, and becoming.

We gaze down upon the body of Ryosuke, lying in repose. His eyes are closed, his arms relaxed at his sides. The image invites a sense of quiet pride and vulnerability. His beard, the hair beneath his arms, and the scars across his chest are presented without apology, marks of transformation, resilience, and triumph.
THE BLESSING OF TRANS SCARS, (Hong Kong. 2022), MsFe and Eunice Chau
A male subject poses against the backdrop of a textured wall, his face obscured by a vibrant red fabric. He cradles a fragile blue balloon in one hand, while an arm, delicate and feminine, extends behind him, reaching outward.
IF FISHES COULD TALK, (Osogbo, Nigeria. 2023), David Olayide
Bathed in a solitary spotlight against a sea of darkness, Fereshteh gazes upward, her mouth gently pursed as if in mid-song or suspended breath. Her expression holds a poignant tension, between longing and proclamation, between silence and sound.
FERESHTEH, (London, England. 2024), Jaime Prada

We Are What They Eat pulses with a grotesque, mesmerising beauty. A kaleidoscope of genitals, anuses, limbs, teeth, toes and internal organs spiral within a hexagonal composition, appearing to shift and convulse—drawing the viewer into a visceral meditation on bodily autonomy, disgust, and desire. T
WE ARE WHAT THEY EAT, (Pōneke, Aotearoa. 2025), Elliot Cox
Chloé (72) holds a mirror in front of her vagina with one hand, while her other hand cradles her head in a gesture of ease and self-affection. Her broad, radiant smile captures not only pride but a profound sense of arrival.
CHLOE, (Shefford, Canada. 2021),
Arianne Clément
A blue-toned figure curls into the fetal position inside a glowing blue void, one hand clutching their head, the other their stomach. Around the void, darker hues, swirling oranges, bronzes, and chaotic textures, suggest a surrounding turmoil from which the figure seeks refuge. The textured surface, punctuated by staples and layered brushstrokes, amplifies the painting’s expressive emotional landscape.The work explores hidden disabilities and the embodied experiences of pain, fatigue, self-doubt, resilience, endurance, and hope. The figure's position within the orb reflects the tension between external chaos and an internal search for respite. It speaks to the continuous interplay of societal and personal pressures, especially as they relate to being both disabled and a woman.
PAIN ME NO MORE I, (Nottinghamshire, England. 2025), Karen Hazelton
A figure stands facing the viewer, their head and chest wrapped tightly in black fabric, leaving only their belly, shoulders, and left upper arm exposed. The bright white background and stark lighting heighten the contrast between concealment and exposure, creating a powerful visual tension.Autism is an invisible yet deeply embodied disability that often goes unrecognised unless forcibly made legible to others. In this self-portrait, the artist refuses the demand for legibility. By concealing their face and upper body, they confront the viewer without capitulating to the expectation of visibility. This image documents a moment of sensory experimentation, where the body and the fabric become intertwined, existing beyond imposed meanings. The act of photographing becomes a form of empowerment, allowing the artist to assert their identity not as a fixed essence but as a dynamic, living being. Facing the camera is not necessary for recognition.As an autistic person, the artist often resists self-exposure, preferring a relationship with the camera and the world that privileges autonomy over forced disclosure. Through tactile and sensory engagement, they explore the intersections of gender, disability, and embodiment. This process, rather than the final image, is the heart of the work.
FACELESS EMBODIMENT, (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2010), Jialu Pombo
A female figure with a prosthetic leg poses nude in a black-and-white portrait. The composition is lush, dynamic, and carefully constructed, celebrating rather than diminishing the subject’s body.Having beaten cancer and lost a leg, the young woman refuses to hide her prosthesis. Her life philosophy- "Nothing is impossible"- is not a call for pity, but a testament to resilience, self-acceptance, and strength. Her scars are not erased; they are embraced as living proof of battles fought and won.In a world that often averts its gaze from disabled bodies, she insists on being seen, not as an object of pity, but as an agent of inspiration and dignity. This portrait embodies a quiet revolution: a demand that society see disabled people as equals.
LIFE ON A PROSTHESIS, (Transcarpathia, the city of Uzhgorod, Ukraine. 2022),
Michael Dorohovich

WORLD BUILDING AND RADICAL PRESENTS

Winning image:

HOPE NEVER DIES, (Bangladesh. 2022), Sadman Sakib

Three members of an amputee football club lie in the flowing waters of a river, arms raised and hands clasped above their heads.
HOPE NEVER DIES, (Bangladesh, 2022), Sadman Sakib

What the judges say: ‘A luminous, spontaneous image that captures the radical potential of joy. The entire series is exceptional; powerful storytelling with depth and tenderness, paired with outstanding artistic execution.’

Across this section, worldbuilding is not metaphor, it is method, necessity, and refusal. Whether through sport, gardening, performance, protest, or play, the artists here show how disabled people continually remake the conditions of their lives, not in spite of constraint but in defiance of it. These acts are not escapist, they are grounded, intentional, and often collective. In creating space for pleasure, care, movement, and imagination, these works ask what becomes possible when we build from disabled and gendered ways of knowing and being.

Worldbuilding pulses through the entire exhibition. Across varied geographies, bodies, and forms, these artists expose exclusion and craft alternatives. They challenge what is, while offering blueprints for what could be. Whether through spatial reclamation, acts of care, or the intimate terrain of the bodymind, they show that disabled life is not something to be fixed or framed, but a generative force for reimagining the world. Worldbuilding, here, is both practice and politics: a way of resisting, reshaping, and living otherwise.

A young girl lies in bed, her breathing apparatus and elaborate floral headdress entwined in a dreamlike display. Bathed in multicoloured light, she gazes away from the camera, her expression distant and absorbed, as if looking beyond our reach.
EVERY DAY I LIVE, (Italy, Milan. 2025), Anastasia Shik
A dancer moves fluidly to the rhythm of the crowd’s applause, his muscular body moving seamlessly with his crutches. Around him, the audience cheers, swept up in the energy of the moment.This photograph celebrates the right of everyone, regardless of ability, to experience and express joy. It challenges the exclusion of disabled bodies from entertainment spaces, showcasing how music and movement can unite people across differences. The dancer’s passion reclaims space for disability within the arts, affirming that joy, creativity, and expression know no boundaries.Here, disability is not an obstacle but a force of vitality and connection. The image stands as a call for greater inclusion in the arts, reminding us that everyone deserves to dance, to be seen, and to be celebrated.
DANCING BEYOND THE LIMIT, (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 2023), Rebeca Makundi Mungo
Salam Khalil, a Yazidi man, beams with joy as he interacts with a horse during a session at the Horses for Hope equine therapy project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Though unable to walk, Salam’s radiant expression and open posture reveal a moment of unfiltered joy and connection—one that redefines what inclusive, therapeutic care can look like.This image underscores the power of intentionally designed spaces where disability is not a limitation but a starting point for reimagined forms of participation. Horses for Hope offers more than physical therapy; it cultivates dignity, belonging, and emotional restoration in a context where disability is often met with exclusion. Here, care is enacted not only by trained professionals but by peers, animals, and community members alike. The presence of men participating in this circle of care also gently challenges prevailing gender roles, expanding how we understand caregiving and emotional support. As a visual statement, the photograph insists on the centrality of both gender and disability in the creation of equitable and empowering environments.
HEALING POWER OF HORSES,
(Kurdistan Region of Iraq. 2017), Claire Thomas
In a warmly lit studio, a man sits weaving a basket with precise movements of his feet. To the side, his leg prosthesis rests behind a small display of hand-painted postcards, quiet evidence of his artistic range.
EMBODIMENT OF ABILITY, (Inle, Myanmar. 2022), Kyaw Zay Ya
Ivan, an 8-year-old boy from Côte d'Ivoire, dances joyfully in his wheelchair just before receiving new orthopedic devices, tools that will help to live and move independently after years of surgeries and rehabilitation.
THE DANCER, (Bonoua, Ivory Coast. 2023), Antonio Aragon Renuncio
Wolfgang stands tall in the garden, hoe in hand, his yellow wellington boots bright against the soil. His gaze is steady, proud, a quiet assertion of dignity and purpose. For over two decades, he has worked at an integration gardening company where people with and without disabilities cultivate the land side by side. This photograph is part of a long-term project built on trust and shared experience. By blurring the lines between who is labelled “disabled” and who is not, the work refuses the hierarchies so often embedded in narratives of labour and care. It captures not only Wolfgang’s strength but also the radical potential of inclusive workplaces: environments rooted in respect, reciprocity, and mutual growth.
WOLFGANG, (Trostberg, Bavaria, Germany. 2025), Manuela Federl
Jisad, a disabled cricketer born with a leg impairment, poses with his cricket bat, wicket, and crutch. His head tilted upward and a broad smile across his face, he radiates a spirit of determination and pride.Cricket has been Jisad’s passion since childhood—a love that brings him to life. Refusing to let his disability define him, he moves through the world with dignity and resilience. This portrait centres his joy, not his diagnosis, capturing an image of disabled life that is rarely foregrounded: one of passion, agency, and interiority.
CRICKET IS MY EMOTIONS, (Hathazari, Chattogram, Bangladesh. 2024), Ziaul Huque
Dressed in a bright pink sandwich shirt and hat, Milly prepares a sandwich in this surreal, playful installation. Plastic cheese, bread, salad, and meat evoke both childhood imagination and a deeper commentary on exclusion.
FILL ME IN SANDIWCH COUNTER, (Bath, UK. 2023), Milly Aburrow.

The judging panel and collaborating organisations

The Cripping the Lens images were selected from hundreds of submissions by a panel of expert judges, all of whom bring lived experience and deep knowledge from within the disability community. We are deeply grateful to them for their time, insight, and critical engagement in shaping this powerful selection of work.

Longlisting Panel

  • Asha – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme
  • Carla S – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme
  • Eve Johnson – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme
  • Kathy M Austin – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme
  • Mark Bedford – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme
  • Sherrine Fox – National accessArts Centre Curatorial Programme

Shortlisting Panel

  • Carbon – Black trans artist, activist and academic
  • Shamim Salim – Founder of Henna Space; an organising space for Queer Muslim Women and Queer Disabled folks

Cripping the Lens was developed in collaboration with CREA and the National accessArts Centre (NaAC). We thank our partners for their shared commitment to amplifying disabled voices through the arts.

Critical Vision: Judges on Image, Power, and Representation

In this series of short videos, members of the Cripping the Lens judging panel reflect on the complexities of visual representation, the politics of visibility, and what it means to select images through a disability justice lens. Their reflections offer a window into the values and questions that shaped the final selection.

How do representation and creative practices contribute to disability justice? 

What barriers still exist in how disability and gender are represented in art and media- and how can artists break them down? 

What common misconceptions around disability do you want to dispel, particularly when it comes to representation and visual storytelling? 

Where next?

EXPLORE THE FULL COLLECTION

See more bold, brilliant images from the competition and dive into our collection of over 250 visual stories.

GET THE LONG EXPOSURE

Dive into the creative processes, visual ethics, and exclusive behind-the-scenes details of selected images in our Representation Matters series.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS, QUESTIONS & IDEAS

For inquiries about Cripping the lens, or simply to share your thoughts, contact our curator Imogen Bakelmun at imogen.bakelmun@global5050.org.