Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago 

 

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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