For any child, gaining literacy is the skill that follows speech on their road to self-expression. The act of writing one's name is the first step to the establishment of a public identity.
Not so for those in Japan with learning difficulties or physical disabilities so severe that they prevent the child from holding a brush or pen. Although the rudiments of reading and writing are taught in special schools, too often efforts are abandoned or neglected on the grounds that it is more trouble than it's worth or that it may be one challenge too many.
Group Monjiya, founded by the classically trained calligrapher Meiyo Minami, is living proof that even severe disability is no bar to anything. A large-scale exhibition of works by the 11 calligraphers who make up the group is having its first British showing at the Richard Attenborough Center for Disability and the Arts in Leicester until the end of January, when it will travel to Project Ability in Glasgow.