While poring over the work of my favorite photographers for Mini-Project 6, I remembered an acclaimed photojournalist I recently learned about in my Therapeutic Arts course. We were studying artists with disabilities and how artists express their views on disability and contextualize their life experiences through their work. Lowell Handler is a professional photojournalist who has traveled across North America to document the experiences of individuals with Tourette syndrome. After being diagnosed with Tourette’s, Handler turned to photography as a way to cope with the socially isolating symptoms of the disorder, which causes the affected individual to perform repetitive movements or vocal inflections.
He finds a sense of community in documenting the experiences of others who struggle with the disease. Many of Handler’s photos depict individuals at the moment when they are overtaken by Tourettic movements; the artist chronicles these involuntary movements in a series of static images.
By documenting these physically uncomfortable and socially unacceptable motions, Handler directs the viewer’s attention to moments that typically make us uncomfortable. Through his photographs Handler seeks to examine the relationship between the observed (people with disabilities) and the viewer.
“I want to force people to observe that which is usually ignored,” Handler writes of his work. “If people are going to look away from me in shame because of my oddity, I will force them to see, through my photographs, every aspect of life, however vile or beautiful.”
Handler’s photos have been featured in LIFE magazine, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, along with other highly selective publications. Handler served as associate producer and narrator of the Emmy-nominated PBS Documentary Twitch and Shout (1995) and published a memoir entitled Twitch and Shout: A Touretter’s Tale (1998). The images in this post are featured in Twitch and Shout, which is available at your friendly local library.
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