This was a wonderful project to work on, and one of our favourites.

Dr Gareth Thomas is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. He works in understanding disability, health and ilness, care and stigma. He approached us, through networks of networks, to help him in visualising his then new research project into the experiences of learned disabled individuals at a café in Cardiff.

The illustrations and comic were based on Dr Thomas’ fieldnotes observations, which produced themes which we could help disseminate in a way that is applicable to the practice.

The main outputs were a two-page comic (see below) and a collection of spot illustrations showcasing some of these themes and specific scenarios that Dr Thomas witnessed. Some of which you can see below.

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Talked through…

Cases where if a disabled person has their carer near them, abled bodied people would ignore them and only direct attention to the carer. Best described as talking through the disabled person.

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Put in a box…

This one may be familiar to many. Whereby you are boxed, left in a small place based entirely on external perceptions of your capabilities.

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Becoming experts and your own advocate…

Dr Thomas described to us a situation where parents of disabled people have to go through a transformation. They have to learn, educate themselves, become experts and advocates to fight for the base modicum of respect and the rights of their children and themselves as carers.

Do read the comic below!