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Faces of Disability: Invisible No More - Disability Photo Exhibit in the Art Gallery
View details of this exhibit View Photography by Tom Olin
For centuries, people with disabilities were invisible. They were locked away in large institutions or kept in their homes by their families who felt shamed because of them. Or if they were among us, we may have turned our eyes when we saw them on the street because their disabilities made us uncomfortable.
These historical photographs of people with disabilities in our community force us to look at them as we may never have before. We can look them in the eyes, sense their personalities, and see them beyond their disabilities.
In his diary written in 1954 two years after contracting polio, Hugh Gregory Gallagher remarked on his first time in public as a disabled person. “I don’t like being out in public. I am still too sensitive—although I don’t know why I am. People don’t stare—and I wouldn’t mind if they did. I think it is just my pride. I imagine them saying, ‘he doesn’t amount to much, he can’t even walk, don’t look at him….’ Doesn’t amount to much—I’ll show them.”
Photography display featuring works of Tom Olin (on loan from the Ability Center of Toledo)
This side exhibit in the Art Gallery presents the pictorial history of the Disability Rights Movement in America from the early 1980s to the present.