Disability aesthetics and empathy : a logical fit for a desirable outcome, but how to get there

Embodied variations defined as disabilities, are inherent in the human condition; are part of every culture; and found as a theme throughout art. The concept of Disability Aesthetics (DA) as currently formulated, focuses on aesthetic representation of corporeal differences in the visual arts. A significant intention in the development of the area of DA was to shift the valuation and social status of the disabled away from that of pariahs on the peripheries of representation. However, DA adheres to a restrictive definition of the term aesthetics anchored in the judgement of beauty. As such, despite the best of intentions, DA as currently narrowly conceptualised cannot achieve its intended social change. Rather, this work argues DA needs to explore the broader sense of aesthetics as a sensory-affective process. This work proposes a more subtle and expansive concept of DA drawing on the Critical Disability Studies (CDS) framework of disability bringing to bear contemporary understandings of aesthetics as a transactive process. Considering aesthetics as a transitive process, encouraging representation of embodied differences within a CDS framework, focusses upon the politics of identity at the site of the individual’s interactions within the social environment. Such a conceptual shift and resultant artistic applications aims to increase empathy in the viewer. This transactive approach to DA is evidenced in the artistic work of the author who has achondroplasia dwarfism. Through shifting focus to the lived experience of embodied difference I show DA is critically positioned to achieve empathy for those too long considered undesirably different