Art Therapy or Art? The Problem of Discriminatory Treatment of people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

This article attempts to examine the issue of perceiving the work of artists with disabilities (including intellectual disabilities) and answer the question whether their disabilities affect our perception of their artistic activities. The analysis is based on the assumption that the art of people with disabilities is mainly associated with therapy and therefore treated as „inferior”, „lower-level” art. Analysis of the literature on the subject, including interviews with artists and founders of performative theatres allows us to formulate a hypothesis that artists with disabilities are often not treated as a serious creators and evaluated in light of their disability, which leads to their marginalization and discrimination. This article is an introduction to the research on the perception of the art of people with disabilities. The issue requires broader study on the problem of social reception of art created by people with disabilities, giving the floor to the art creators with disabilities and taking into account their experience on of marginalization and discrimination.