21 February, 2025
We are pleased to say the keynote lecture delivered by Dr Bess Williamson at the 2024 DHS Annual Conference 'Border Control' is now live on the DHS YouTube channel (closed captions are available)
Watch here:
Title: The Disability History of Sensory Design: On the Borders of Care and Design
Friday 6th September
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 was be delivered virtually, and audiences were invited to set up (to whatever extent was 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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