Soft Language Hits Hard

In some ways this work is the physical realisation of the manifesto "A Semantic and Vernacular Discussion of Disabled". While exploring language in the context of disability, I stumbled across a phenomenon called "soft language". This phenomenon describes humans' tendency to conceal subjects they are uncomfortable with in increasingly sterile, nondescript or euphemistic language. Shell shock becomes battle fatigue becomes operational exhaustion becomes PTSD. Instead of dressing issues we rebrand them giving the impression of progress whilst patronising those affected. Over the last 100 years, the language surrounding disability has also been comprehensively sanitised. Comparably, progress on the actual inclusion of disabled persons in society has been appallingly slow. Euphemistic descriptors like "differently abled" are false tools that instil those born with impairments with a false sense of empowerment, agency and progress. The interactive installation is inspired by a 1970's Denver protest where persons in wheelchairs used sledgehammers to smash curbs, one of the most common impediments to their daily lives. A number of uniquely, but equally useless hammers with different descriptors for disability are offered to the participant. Like the protesters pictured above them, they are invited to smash the concrete curb before them. Their failure to do so reveals the futility of these language "tools" and confronts the audience with the feeling of powerlessness felt by many disabled persons every day.