Zimbabwe Wheel

“Factory-made wheelchairs are enormous, cumbersome, and unattractive.” In response to this reality, wheelchair users Ralph Hotchkiss and Omar Talavera set out to create beautiful, all-terrain wheelchairs. Their efforts are inspired by the ingenuity of disabled people in the Third World, who must build their own chairs out of necessity. A finely crafted work in its own right, Zimbabwe Wheel shows that wheelchairs can be genuinely empowering works of art: hand-built machines that are affordable, durable, and customized to the rider’s needs. “Working on your chair is like working on your whole sense of self,” says a student, capturing a feeling no factory-made chair can offer.