The Disability History of Sensory Design: On the Borders of Care and Design

Friday 6th September, 17.00 – 18.15

In recent years, designers and public institutions have increasingly recognized varied sensory responses of different bodyminds. “Sensory friendly” spaces and objects recognize “sensory sensitive” and “sensory seeking” tendencies among neurodiverse populations including people who are autistic or have ADHD or a variety of other overlapping cognitive and intellectual conditions (which may or may not be medically recognised). In this talk, Dr. Bess Williamson, author of Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design, explores this history as a design intervention by disabled people alongside mostly women caregivers, including medical and education professionals as well as family members and other loved ones. Sensory access exists on the borders of welcomed and unwelcomed care, and raises fraught issues of agency and constraint in design relationships.
 
This talk will be delivered virtually, and audiences are invited to set up (to whatever extent is possible) their own sensory tools such as blankets, pillows, stim toys and fidgets, or simply to join virtually in their own preferred space or at the conference venue.

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Bio

Associate Professor of Design Studies, North Carolina State University

 

Dr Bess Williamson is a historian of design and material culture with a particular interest in social and political concerns in design, including environmental, labour, justice, and rights issues as they shape and are shaped by spaces and things. Her book Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design traces the history of design responses to disability rights from 1945 to recent times. This project shows how the concept of “access” emerged as a value in design in this period, with consequences for the everyday lives of disabled people as well as for discourses around civil rights and design’s role in society. Dr Williamson is also co-editor, with Dr. Elizabeth Guffey, of Making Disability Modern: Design Histories, a collection of case studies of objects, buildings, and systems that reflect changing design approaches to disability, and is working on a new book project encompassing ideas of care and neurodiversity across fields of art, craft, and design. She is Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

 

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