My name is Anthony Porter, In 2021, I was paralysed by Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I spent months unable to move, dependent on machines and other people for everything. I recovered — enough to walk, enough to function, enough that strangers see nothing wrong when they look at me.
That invisibility is the subject of this work
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An estimated 80% of disabilities in the UK are hidden. The wheelchair — the image the world reaches for when it thinks about disability — represents only a fraction of the reality. From personal experience as a disabled photographer, Seeing the Unseen explores the tension between visibility and assumption, and the social pressures faced by people whose conditions leave no obvious physical trace.
The project is a constructed documentary series made in collaboration with people living with hidden conditions — chronic illness, neurological damage, mental illness, and pain that leaves no visible mark. Using portraiture, metaphor, and visual construction, the work makes tangible what daily life conceals, translating internal experience into visual form.
It does not ask for sympathy. It asks for attention
