Sara Hendren - conference at KIKK Festival 2017

Investigating normal

This talk will explore the unexpected places where disability is at the heart of design: a site of creativity and invention, a site of cultural work in both engineering and the arts, and an urgent social and political matter for human rights in the future. Expect ramps for skateboarders and wheelchair users, design-for-one furniture, architecture for dementia, and more.

Sara Hendren

Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, and professor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She makes material art and design works, writes, and lectures on adaptive and assistive technologies, prosthetics, inclusive design, accessible architecture, and related ideas. Her work has been exhibited in the US and abroad and is held in the permanent collection at MOMA (NYC), and her writing and design work have appeared in the Boston Globe, The Atlantic Tech, FastCo Design, and on National Public Radio (US), among others. She teaches socially-engaged design practices, adaptive and assistive technology design, and disability studies for engineers-in-training in her role as assistant professor at Olin College. She writes and edits Abler.