Mit Behinderung in Angola leben
A design ethnography research project in Luanda examined the harsh day-to-day existence of the almost 10 per cent of Angola's population living with a physical disability - many as the result of accidents involving land mines. The large-format publication, which features Angola's national colours of black, red and yellow throughout, is innovative both politically and aesthetically. It opens with an extensive photographic documentation compiled by one of those affected, which has been recoloured and in some cases screened and collaged. The research report that follows, including numerous excerpts from conversations, is set within a reduced yellow page area reminiscent of a standard Word layout. Individual yellow pages printed in red, most of them with a number of portraits and photographs of cities, interrupt the text flow. The presentation confidently subverts the familiar tendency to treat the physically disabled as mere victims and evoke sympathy through photogenic presentation, and instead gives them a voice, a face and, not least, aesthetic agency.
