Medical museums tend to be short on art and long on the preserved remains of bodies with diseases or deformities.
Riva Lehrer, an artist with spina bifida, wants to change that. As she explained in a recent talk titled “Jarred: Self Portrait in Formaldehyde,” her work highlights the humanity and beauty of people with disabled or otherwise unconventional bodies, in contrast to the dispassionate scientific displays that let viewers “seal themselves off under emotional layers of glass.”
Click through to see some of her stunning portraits and read more of her thoughts on the ways “disability can make you move in unexpected dances.”
