Richard Butchins

I use my own experience as a disabled person to make work which addresses disability through mainstream television documentary in both arts and current affairs, and in my personal art practice. The disabled are a continually despised section of society, perceived either as a burden or as objects of pity or inspiration via overcoming adversity on ableist terms, but not as productive, beautiful, worthwhile, or equal in their own right. When disabled people are seen as valuable, (e.g. Stephen Hawking), they are considered anomalies who are exceptional and unusual.

I am an award-winning filmmaker and artist, and PhD candidate in Film: Practice as Research, at the University of Kent School of Arts. I live by the sea and do not have a cat.