July is Disability Pride Month

“Disability Pride Month is a time to show that we exist in joy, in colour, and in community. The disabled community deserve to take up space without shame or apology.”

We are part of the movement that won’t stay quiet about amplifying the voices of the disabled community and have come together to create a body of work that champions each individual for who they are. This year from conversations with the disabled community, we focused on creating imagery with joy and colour. The disabled community has spent generations being marginalized and misunderstood and we are determined to change that. We believe that every person should be acknowledged, valued, and respected and one way to do that is by recognizing Disability Pride Month. Recognizing it and then also using it as en excuse to cover the city with colour and joy that increases representation of people with disabilities.

“We are so often overlooked, dismissed, or tokenized.” “I spent a long time hiding my disabilities and not participating in disability pride, which only led to shame and isolation. Once I stopped hiding and chose to be proud of who I am and what makes me different, I became so much happier.”

This project was built in collaboration with people with lived experience in the disabled community and 25 of the 27 people involved on the photoshoot day come from under represented communities.

Keep reading to learn more about what Disability Pride is all about.

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What is Disability Pride Month about?

Disability Pride is celebrated every July after 1,000 people marched from the White House to the U.S. Capitol in 1990 to demand that Congress pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. Approximately 60 activists physically demonstrated the inaccessibility of public spaces by getting out of their wheelchairs or setting aside their mobility aids and crawling up the Capitol steps in an act of civil disobedience that later became known as the Capitol Crawl. Because of this movement, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was created. The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability.

Now, every July we commemorate this achievement and take the time to honour the history, achievements, experiences, and struggles of the disability community. By listening and learning from people with lived experience, we all grow in becoming allies for the disabled community when it comes to advocacy and inclusion. Advocacy means that we fight for equal opportunities, help to remove barriers that exist in the world that we live in and implement change for communities that need it. Disability Pride Month gives us the opportunity to emphasizes the dignity and value of individuals with disabilities, promoting the idea that disability is a natural part of human diversity. For centuries we’ve seen people with disabilities marginalized and it’s time to challenge those negative stereotypes and misconceptions about disability to foster a more inclusive and understanding society.

Commonly disability can be portrayed as inspirational or tragic and still to this day the commercial advertising industry fails to represent people with disabilities in a way that is true to real life. This project was about fighting the stereotypes that exist and showing the beauty of the disabled community. After conversations with disabled individuals, this project began to take shape and was focused on the joy of each person and the diversity of everyones disabilities.