Businesswoman and Fashion Designer Reveca Torres Discusses People with Disabilities in Media
For much of her life, Reveca Torres thought that she had to keep the two parts of her life separate. Perhaps because it was easier, or perhaps because there was no one to tell her otherwise. A part of her was a budding fashion designer who had a flair for creativity and making living art. A part of her was a woman who had been paralyzed as a result of a car accident and had developed a passion for disability advocacy.
After achieving a degree in fashion design and theatre arts, Torres spent the bulk of her time starting and expanding her nonprofit organization called BackBones. The nonprofit seeks to bring the spirit of friendship and comradery to others living with spinal cord injuries.
Although the nonprofit both motivated and fulfilled Torres in her quest to provide an interactive community for greater advocacy, an outlet for her creativity was still missing.
That’s when Torres began to have ideas of how to increase representation of people with disabilities in photography. Using the people she had met and worked with in her nonprofit, Torres began an artistic campaign to capture people with disabilities going about their normal daily routines.
Speaking to us on our podcast show, Torres explained that most photography exhibitions that featured people of disabilities focused on the extremes -- either people with disabilities doing nothing but lie in a hospital bed or do outrageously imaginative activities.
Torres wanted to change that through a series of photography exhibitions that featured people with disabilities as being normal people who had to get to work, take public transportation, and get the mail.
At long last, Torres had found a way to combine both parts of herself. The photography exhibitions required a creative eye and unique perspective that worked to further disability advocacy in the predominantly able-bodied world of the arts.
Why is Disability Representation in the Arts So Important?
Torres grew up knowing she wanted to enter a creative field. A spinal cord injury didn’t change the goal, it simply complicated how to reach it with her new limitations.
Torres had the passion and motivation to become the first person in a wheelchair to graduate from her program, but she acknowledges that it would have been helpful to have role models to look up in the fields of theatre or art.
Today, there are only a handful of people with disabilities who work in any capacity in the arts. Although there is a growing movement to showcase the creative works of people with disabilities, few have the professional training or resources needed to land a role on the big screen or be selected to show a photography or creative arts exhibit in museums and art galleries.
Torres hopes that her work will be a step towards the representation that she wanted growing up. Through her various projects, Torres seeks to connect and empower fellow people with disabilities. She also hopes that her presence in the world of creative arts will lead to renaissance of accurate portrayals of people with disabilities -- whether the creators be able-bodied or not.
Above all, Torres wants to inspire the next generation of creators with disabilities to do wonderous things in the name of creativity and disability advocacy.
Want to hear Reveca Torres speak in her own words? Check out the Traipsin’ Global on Wheels Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knc_o1pBSQA&t=127s