Triumph in the Face of Disabilities
Victor Chin
MALAYSIA

This set of five portraits of athletes is from a photographic documentary project in progress. These pictures were taken at the Malaysian XII Paralympiad, in Kuala Lumpur, 2004.

Daily, the local press without fail will carry at least five to six pages of International and local sporting stories. But during the 7 days of the paralimpaid sporting events this year there was hardly any daily coverage of the 20 events by the 1600 athletes.

This deliberate discrimination of sport meetings between the ‘normal’ and the ‘disabled’ is not just a local media injustice but it is an international media prejudice. These photographs of the six athlete act as a form of resistance to world wide media inequality.

In addition, these portraits (a print is given free to each of the athlete for their own use) also act as a tool to resist their own physical and mental apathy. They can show the picture to themselves, their love ones, their country and the rest of the world, how they have triumphed in the face of disability and iniquity.