Ripple Effect is a multimedia project that looks at the positive impact that meaningful employment has on people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and the community surrounding them. The project consists of a portrait series of people with IDD who have careers – some upwards of 25 years, a film that follows the work and home life of Max–a man who has IDD and has worked at a church for 17 years, and an article that provides insight into the issues affecting this population.
"But sooner or later, even a body that seemed so beautiful, so serviceable, would give way. The disabled (no word is truly fit or sufficient to define them) are a hidden majority: in spite of the machines and drugs and prosthetics attempting to prove death doesn't exist, nearly all of us, over time, will lose a superpower, sight, or an arm, or our memory. The inability to do things we should be able to do, the impossibility of seeing, hearing, remembering, walking – these aren't the exception, they're the destination.
Sooner or later, we all become disabled."
-Claudia Durastanti,
translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris
This work was published by NPR. It was also shortlisted for the Arts Thread Global Design Graduate Show in Collaboration with Gucci, 2022. In addition, it received second place for the Nashman Prize at the George Washington University.
"But sooner or later, even a body that seemed so beautiful, so serviceable, would give way. The disabled (no word is truly fit or sufficient to define them) are a hidden majority: in spite of the machines and drugs and prosthetics attempting to prove death doesn't exist, nearly all of us, over time, will lose a superpower, sight, or an arm, or our memory. The inability to do things we should be able to do, the impossibility of seeing, hearing, remembering, walking – these aren't the exception, they're the destination.
Sooner or later, we all become disabled."
-Claudia Durastanti,
translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris
This work was published by NPR. It was also shortlisted for the Arts Thread Global Design Graduate Show in Collaboration with Gucci, 2022. In addition, it received second place for the Nashman Prize at the George Washington University.