Theoretical Approach to Disability and Access

Before advancing into the theoretical connections between SS and DS, I want to clarify the terms disability and access. For much of history and in many disciplines still, a medical model of disability dominates. In the medical model, disability is framed as an impairment in need of correcting or hiding, an unfortunate deviation from able-bodied standards which are viewed as normal and natural (Shakespeare 2013). In contrast, the social model of disability rejects the notion of impairment and situates disability in the social processes and policies that constrict an individual's ability to move through life (UPIAS 1976; Oliver 1984). While prolific in propelling (Western) disability rights movements, this model has nevertheless been the target of critiques that it overgeneralizes disability by failing to account for the complexities of individual differences (e.g. the way it relates to physical disability primarily), and fails to meaningfully include how other categories of oppression and global positionality impact the experience and definitions of disability (Crow 1996; Erevelles 2011; Kafer 2013; Puar 2017).  Currently, I approach disability as something dynamic: while definitions exist, these definitions are relational and the way that disability manifests is seen as conditional to specific socio-political conjunctures (Oliver 1984; Kafer 2013; Davis 2013; Hendren 2020). In other words, disability operates as part of complex historical sets of power relations that intersect with colonization, racism, sexism, classism and ableism (See Erevelles 2011). While disability cannot be pinned to one set, stable definition, I will use Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s concept of the misfit (2011), a prolific feminist-materialist framework of disability, to illustrate the connection between design and disability.

The misfit model frames disability as a social phenomenon that is caused by a mismatch between the built environment and the body; “like trying to fit a square peg through a round hole” (Garland-Thomson 2011, 592). Literally meaning a mis-fit, this model emphasizes the social barriers as well as the varying lived embodiments of disability without essentializing a generic ‘disabled body’ (and mind) that will dematerialize if social barriers are removed (Garland-Thomson 2011, 592). What is useful about this framework is that it addresses the social barriers in the built environment, while also advocating for the added value of the knowledge that results from experiences of disability. This knowledge is also integral to the framework of “crip technoscience,” (Hamraie & Fritsch 2019, 3) which highlights the skills and wisdom that disabled people utilize to navigate the built environment. Within a materialist framework, both disability studies and sensory studies reject the supposedly inherent naturalness or givenness of the built environment, and advocates that how our bodies and minds interact with the world and each other is politically and socially constructed, often through “acts of marking, excluding, punishing or exalting particular individuals and groups” (Howes & Classen 2014, 92) and their associated senses (Oliver 1984, Shakespeare 2013; Davis 2013). I contextualize a feminist-materialist framework of disability to highlight how the lived experience of disability adds a valuable dimension to SS when it comes to Differential Sensory Design.

In a broad sense, access is about striving for a more inclusive society with greater opportunities for social and political participation (Williamson 2015). However, in praxis, it is often reduced to “add on” features or matter of code compliance, such as a ramp or captions. This is sometimes referred to colloquially as “Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Access,” because it flattens the concept to a set of requirements that can be checked off a list. Not only does this position access, and by extension disability, as something monolithic, it often only addresses the most visible and obvious barriers. In his essay “The Inclusive Museum,” Sina Bahram notes that “there seems to be a collective failure to recognize that the job is not complete just because those with disabilities can enter the building” (2018, 25). Once inside the museum, accessibility measures exist as add-on programming that is often difficult to navigate and separate from the general public (Bahram 2018, 23). Accessibility and cur­­­atorial departments are almost always separated in the museum, meaning that programming is designed in isolation for access practices (Cachia 2013a, 259). DS scholars and activists frame access, like disability, as a nuanced and embodied experience that can be transformative of an object or experience (Kafer 2013; Titchkosky 2011). In this framework, access is positioned as an issue of design from the start (rather than an afterthought), and sensory design therefore has a key role to play in re-thinking the museum.

The status of disability has long been tied to the cultural construction of the senses, as Howes and Classen note with particular reference to speech:

The pseudo-biological sensory markers of social status included speech, which was often deemed to manifest innate characteristics. As speech was taken to be the sign of rationality in Western culture, its mode of use was taken as revelatory of the speaker’s mental capacities (2014, 68).

This exemplifies two key “truths'' that disability studies rejects: 1) a Cartesian “I think therefore I am” notion of rationality as a marker of humanity (Wendel 1989; Carlson & Kittay 2010; Carlson 2021) and 2) that speech is a clear indication of “mental capacities'' and one's ability to engage with rational thought (Price 2011; Ginsburg 2012; Dolmage 2017).  In the same paragraph, Howes and Classen further reference the hierarchy of both the senses and disability in the context of how deafness and blindness have been construed historically:

 “those who were mute from birth were thought incompetent to handle their affairs and consigned to a ‘perpetual legal infancy’…. Their ability to speak meant that the blind did not suffer the same social and legal penalties as the deaf. They were, however, stigmatized as unintelligent and sensual due to their lack of vision and reliance on touch (2014, 68).

By addressing the oppressive nature of sensory difference, the field of SS is drawing attention to the disabling consequences of the prevailing “sensory model” and the social environment it legitimates in a way that is akin to feminist-materialist and socio-political arguments in DS. As Classen states, it is according to the “sensory meanings and values [which] form the sensory model espoused by a society … [that] the members of that society ‘make sense’ of the world, or translate sensory perceptions and concepts into a particular ‘worldview’. There will likely be challenges to this model from within the society, persons and groups who differ on certain sensory values [and practices], yet this model will provide the basic perceptual paradigm to be followed or resisted” (1997, 402). Here our focus will be on resistance to the prevailing sensory regime in relation to the construction and maintenance of disability.

Disability and Differential Sensory Design

Aside from programming for those who are d/Deaf or disabled, sensory interventions in the museum are often directed at children or school groups, with the notion that they “are not yet ready to engage in mature visual appreciation and hence require extra sensory stimulation” (Howes & Classen 2014, 30). Not only does this infantilize the lower senses, it also treats the experiences of individuals who do not engage traditionally as abnormal. As Bahram points out, instead of building accessible experiences into the design, the museum relegates them to separate rooms (2018, 25).  That being said, as Classen notes (2017, 117), highly mediated multi-sensory experiences are emerging in museums with great success, posing an opportunity to explore what multi-sensoriality (in place of the conventional understanding of the museum as a space of single sense (e.g., ocular epiphanies) has to offer in terms of addressing issues of access.

The Explorations in Sensory Design project advances the term Differential Sensory Design to name the turn to sensory design that is inclusive to a wide range of bodyminds [1]. It is a friendly departure from Universal Design [2], a prominent term in DS coined by architect Ronald Mace in 1985. UD enshrines the idea that many people, whether disabled or non-disabled, benefit from a more accessible built environment (Hamraie 2019, 5). It is a lowest common denominator approach: for example, ramps in place of stairs are usable by everybody.  Differential Sensory Design articulates an alternative ethos of Universal Design by taking difference as its starting point and critically engaging with the construction and hierarchies of the senses by rethinking dominant, exclusionary research through a lens of multisensory design (Sitter & Grittner 2021). This method prioritizes first-person experiences and data collection through multiple senses as opposed to translating to written and verbal methods (Sitter & Grittner 2021).  This is incredibly important for the inclusion of people with intellectual and mental disabilities, whose access needs are often not addressed in traditional accessibility measures, reflecting a hierarchy of disability.

Within the field of DS, there are some creative, multi-sensory interventions of Universal Design in the museum space (see Chang & Felt 2020; Hendren 2020; Sitter & Grittner 2021), however this has yet to break into mainstream curatorial and accessibility practices (Cachia 2013b). Especially not in the same way as the field of SS, where the emergent notion of “sensory museology” (Howes 2014) is often a core methodology built into curation. Differential Sensory Design renegotiates the boundaries between participants and objects in the context of art by focusing on the body in all its sensory multiplicity (Lipps & Lupton 2018, 15). For example, in the journal article “Sound Studies Meets Deaf Studies,” Friedner and Helmreich discuss how attending to vibrations reveals the overlap between the sensory worlds of deaf and hearing subjects. The two worlds are typically framed as being opposed due to a fallacious binary between sound and silence (2012, 76). The authors describe a low-frequency vibration workshop co-organized by Gallaudet University and MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies as part of artist Wendy Jacob’s “Waves and Signs” conference at MIT.  The conference explored the tactile dimensions of sound relative to the individual experience of each viewer, to show how methods of sensorial attunement contemplate the ontology of sound or what it means to experience sonic work (Friedner & Helmreich 2012). While this is just one example, it shows how providing a framework of multi and cross sensory experimentation enables a critical analysis of our ways of knowing and being in the world. 

Harnessing sensory knowledge on both a methodological and curatorial level presents ample opportunity to explore access and disability. Defined as the meaning-making that is “non-verbal” “tacit,” “taken for granted” … “invisible”... [and] not easily expressed in written or spoken words,'' (Elliott & Culhane 2017, 47) sensory knowledge addresses the gap that exists when only spoken language, vision and the written word are used to produce and disseminate knowledge in institutions related to art and academia (Dolmage 2017, 100; Classen 2017, 7). While sensory knowledge is prominent in the field of SS, it still exists in the margins of DS, although it is an accepted truth in the field that there are diverse ways to communicate and produce knowledge. Despite recognizing the validity of multiple ways of communicating, research methods with disability studies often privilege ableist methods of knowing and communicating through verbal and written data collection and dissemination (Sitter & Grittner 2021, 46). Given the creative methodological interventions that the field of SS is making, there is promising potential for collaboration with DS to address issues of access.

The Multisensory Studio at the University of Calgary is an experimental space that blends sensory and arts-based methods in research design and knowledge translation/mobilization. Directed by Kathleen Sitter, the studio aims to address limitations in traditional research methods and provide an accessible environment that supports the creation, engagement, and enactment of stories by, for, with, and alongside the disability community (Multisensorystudia.ca, 2021). Sitter who is Canadian Research Chair (CRC) in Multi-sensory Storytelling in Research and Knowledge Translation, utilizes elements of inclusive design, knowledge translation and participant engagement to explore inclusive avenues for research. The lab employs storytelling in combination with touch, sound, and image-making to enable people to create works of art that project their own narrative (Sitter & Grittner 2021, 44) By rethinking dominant, exclusionary research and prioritizing embodied experiences through the multiple sensual avenues, the studio offers an exciting direction for Differential Sensory Design.

One of the current projects titled “Youth Digital Storytelling” provides a platform for youth (ages 18-30) with developmental disabilities to create digital stories about transitioning into adulthood. The peer-based workshop collaborates with youth and their family members over a series of five virtual sessions, to create a digital story. While the research is still in an early stage, utilizing embodied, participant-led methodology at the intersection of disability and sensory knowledge proves fruitful.

Case Studies: Access and Sensory Design in Museum Exhibits

“What would it mean for curators to think about curating access, a domain that has traditionally fallen within the mandate of a major museum’s education department?” (Cachia 2013a, 278).

I open with this quote from Cachia as I turn to three exhibition case studies that generate ideas and ponder frictions related to sensory design and access. The first presents a curious failure, which I will contrast with the latter two case studies to speculate on the mobilization of Differential Sensory Design as an inclusive practice.

Blind At the Museum January 26–July 24, 2005

Curated by Beth Dungan and Katherine Sherwood, Blind at the Museum ran for six months in 2005 at the Berkeley Art Museum's Theater Gallery. This exhibition is worth exploring because it presents an early example of attempting to circumvent an essentialist view of disability by integrating Blindness as an axis of creativity in place of merely exhibiting works ‘about’ Blindness. The exhibit's goal was to disrupt conventional notions of what it means to view/see art, and it accordingly staged a “wide range of optical experiences - peripheral vision, distortion, floaters - along a continuum. Included are artists who emphasize sound, touch, and multisensory expression; artists who investigate the unreliability of vision; artists who are blind and yet are committed to the visual arts; and artists who rethink the activities of viewing within the museum” (Dungan & Sherwood 2005).

Due to a now defunct website, it is difficult to reconstruct the actual sensory experience offered by this exhibit, though Amanda Cachia (2013b) provides some helpful pointers. Notable artists include French artist Sophie Calle, known for her photography series on blindness and Alice Wingwall’s photo documentation of her experience as a Blind woman. While the exhibit challenges an ocular hierarchy in theory, in praxis it garnered criticism for perpetuating the vision-centric archetype of the museum by containing predominantly visual experiences. Cachia writes of a woman Ester, who “described her visit to the exhibit with her blind father, commenting on how disappointed she felt that the art in the exhibit ultimately perpetuated the museum as a space that privileges those with vision, given the work was primarily visual. [She] said that apart from Joseph Grigely's audio installation, You (2001), there was very little work that her father could enjoy” (Cachia 2013b). While the museum provided all ADA access measures such as audio descriptions at the exhibition, Braille wall labels, and additional tours, it failed to incorporate access as a meaningful part of the design.

This exhibit serves as an example of a contradiction that differential sensory design mitigates. While disability was included on a meaningful level in both content and add on access measures, there is little that addresses the bodyminds who are accessing the art. As is evident from the surviving descriptions of its content, this exhibition was largely geared toward a seeing audience as if to give them the opportunity to understand an experience of blindness as a spectator. This implicitly echoes a medical model of disability because it positions Blindness as “a knowable fact of the body” (Kafer 2013, 4) something that can be understood in a disembodied context such as viewing art. Blind at the Museum thus presents an interesting early attempt to disrupt what it means to view art, but it fell short. The next two exhibitions contrast with the first, mobilizing methods of sensory design and attuning to the bodyminds of museum visitors.

Recoding Crip Tech January 24 to February 25, 2020

Recoding CripTech, “reimagines enshrined notions of what a body can be or do through creative technologies, and how it can move, look, or communicate” (Chang & Felt 2020). The multidisciplinary exhibit at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco included photography, media art, sound, interactive installation, and sculpture and offered additional programming such as workshops and online interaction. The exhibit features many multi-sensory interventions as integral to the artwork, such as Beating Heart by Jillian Crochet, a deep red heart woven in crochet that was suspended from the ceiling and stretched 6 feet across in diameter. Participants were invited to interact with the piece, go inside it, touch, as well as look. Recoding CripTech also included a variety of sensory translations such as audio descriptions for visual works, closed-captioning for audiovisual media, tactile floor samples, and large print wall text for all exhibition works. What I find most interesting is the inclusion of Braille exhibition guides in partnership with the collective Lighthouse for the Blind that included a tactile floor plan, and tactile translations of key visual artworks that were bound into books and available on site. As seen in the image comparison of “Em-brace,” part of Crip Couture by Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi (fig.1 & 2), the meaning of “seeing” was transformed, serving as a prime example of creative access that meets sensory design. These also serve as new pieces of artwork themselves, highlighting the transformative creativity that can emerge from meaningfully including disability in the museum.

Figure 1: Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi, Em-brace; 2011. Image credit Richard Lomibao.
Retrieved from: https://www.recodingcriptech.com

A pair of white L-shaped braces, which have a hard surface and organic wavy edges. They are cuffed with soft and creamy fabric, embroidered with clusters of white and pinkish French knots. A thin mesh fabric forms ruffles on the top of the braces. The photo is taken from above and the braces sit on a smooth white surface, against a white wall bathed in shadows from an overhead light source.

The Senses: Design Beyond Vision April 13, 2018 - October 28, 2018

The final case study offers a comprehensive look at sensory design and access working in harmony. The Senses: Design Beyond Vision at the Copper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City in 2018 explores novel ways of accessing the world by harnessing an ethos of sensory design. The exhibition features almost 100 objects and installations that are designed to engage visitors in a rich array of sensory experience. The exhibition explicitly interrogates the notion of design as a predominantly visual realm by featuring artifacts that could be directly experienced, fusing the bodymind with sensational experiences and enabling a greater diversity of users (Lipps & Lupton 2018, 10). The Senses featured both immersive installations and experimental prototypes, positioning each within an incipient (still unnamed) realm of differential sensory design. By including design prototypes alongside immersive experiences, The Senses articulates how “designing beyond vision” foregrounds multi-sensoriality and approaches it with a creative and experimental spirit. For example, The “Dot Watch” prototype straddles sensory design and experimental access as a smartwatch that moves beyond replacing visual information with audio features, the standard alternative for accessibilizing technology. The lightweight, sleek watch utilizes moveable pins to display the time in both a visual and tactile way. Designed by cloudandco, in Seoul, South Korea, the watch has two modes: a Braille mode that displays the time in digital form in braille and a tactile mode which displays analog time with a simple form of tactile dots (Lipps & Lupton 2018, 171). Utilizing a Bluetooth connection, the watch can also read text messages and smartphone applications in braille. While “The Dot Watch” harnessed braille explicitly as an intervention for b/Blind or low vision consumers, its tactile mode offers a creative way for any consumer to tell time without relying on sight.

In collaboration with KunstLab, designer Roos Meerman create a version of her “Tactile Orchestra” for The Senses. The immersive experience features a curved wall that is covered in synthetic fur. There are sensors in the fur that when touched, activate various recordings of string instruments (Lipps & Lupton 2018, 85). The piece hinges on an embodied response to material, as Meerman explains "almost everyone approaches something furry with the same response. They want to pet it" (Cooper Hewitt, 2018). This embodied response was combined with an aural component from speakers overhead to produce a multisensorial experience. This offers the opportunity to engage with the piece in multiple ways, in a variety of sensory contexts. “Tactile Orchestra” is intrinsically accessible to a wider range of participants, highlighting the transformative experiences of access that emerge from Differential Sensory Design. The composition is divided into six sections, each programmed to a different part of the wall, so that multiple participants are needed to "play" the full composition (Lipps & Lupton 2018, 85). This embeds an element of relationality in the experience, not just among senses but also making a point of involving other bodyminds. Not only does this dictate the experience of the piece, but it enables a visitor relationality that cannot be reached without the introduction of multiple senses.

Aside from the inclusive nature of content in the exhibit, a variety of multisensory access interventions were employed to provide experiences for a variety of bodyminds (Lipps & Lupton, 2018). The label for each artwork is embedded with a tactile element by displaying the name and number of the piece in braille (fig. 3). For clarity, a textured yellow bar indicates which senses can be utilized in the piece (e.g., if it can be touched, smelled, or heard as well as seen). This is an excellent intervention of access, as participants don’t necessarily have to read an artist statement to fully engage with the piece, rather can easily be directed to which senses to attune to. A custom Accessible Exhibitions smartphone app offers each visitor the opportunity to access additional descriptive and interpretive content in text and audio formats. A visitor may enter a content number and choose to read a text, hear it with a screen reader, or listen to an audio recording. Lupton also provided a descriptive audio tour through two dozen projects in the exhibition, that explicitly features step-by-step guidance for visitors with blindness or low vision.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same name and a robust online archive. Not only does this address issues of temporal access for those who cannot make it in person, but it shares many strategies for sensory design. These tools function as augmented access implementations. The Senses exhibit fruitfully implements sensory design to provide innovative access to a range of embodied experiences. This also draws participants' attention to the dynamic ways that art is experienced beyond the visual. The combination of explicit and implicit access interventions demonstrates sensory design that is critically informed by a lens of disability studies.

Conclusion and Criteria for Future Explorations

Traditional models of access often reflect a hierarchy of disability that privileges some disabilities over others or address disability in theory, but not praxis (e.g., Ester’s complaint at the Blind at the Museum exhibit). Because sensory studies is founded on a key principle of acknowledging a socially constructed sensory hierarchy, there is a holistic approach to knowledge and communication built into the design. Differential Sensory Design integrates sensory design into a framework of disability justice to address issues of access in the museum space by renegotiating the relationship between art and the bodyminds who interact with it. The literature and examples discussed in this probe reflect three key criteria which I believe are reflected in Differential Sensory Design. I will use these criteria to contextualize a future workshop exploring transformative access in the museum space.

Multi-Sensoriality at the Core of Design

As shown by The Multisensory Studio at the University of Calgary, engaging multiple senses in the design of research enables a wider range of participants. It offers the opportunity to include those who are often excluded through dominant research methodologies that rely on reading and writing, particularly those with cognitive disabilities (Sitter & Grittner 2021). Mobilizing Differential Sensory Design in research with participants with disabilities increases the ability to tap into the embodied experiences. The success of The Senses: Design Beyond Vision exhibition highlights the increased accessibility that emerges when a museum space is attuned to issues of the senses. This also mitigates the reliance on add-on access measures to meaningfully include disabled people in spaces and research designed for the able-body. Finally, multi-sensoriality as a design axis can work to mitigate a hierarchy of disability that privileges some disabled bodyminds over others.

Flexible Methods of Communication

Differential Sensory Design means that there is no singular “correct” method of communication; rather communication is holistic and fluid. Sensory knowledge addresses the gap that exists when we only engage the “higher senses,” its methodology proves very fruitful for addressing issues of access (Elliott & Culhane 2017, 47). Both The Senses and Recoding CripTech exhibitions present multiple sensorially-embedded avenues of engagement, such as “Textile Orchestra” which fuses touch and hearing, and the tactile braille artwork translations at Recoding CripTech. By positioning these features as part of the exhibition, as opposed to something one has to ask permission to touch or retrieve from the accessibility department, the experience itself becomes easier to access. Including flexibility in design also avoids the isolation of people with additional access needs to separate rooms or programs, as is common in mainstream museum programming. Flexible communication is integral to both the field of sensory studies and critical disability studies presenting rich terrain for future alliances in both research and design.

Grounded in Relationality

Differential Sensory Design emphasizes the knowledge that emerges between the senses, between bodymind and object, and between different bodyminds experiencing an object. The Senses curators Lipps and Luton sought pieces that could be directly experiences by visitors, a key faucet in mobilizing sensory design and accessibility (2018,10).  Kathleen Sitter­ at the Multisensory Studio conducts workshops that are peer-based and hinge on collaboration, not just of mediums but of experiences. This reflects a key principle of disability as deeply relational to the socio-political and material contexts on an individual (Garland-Thompson 2011; Kafer 2013). In research, attuning to relationality in a context of sensory design may lead to the discovery of specific sensorial factors that are particularly impactful to an embodied experience.

Bibliography

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Figure 3: A image of a blonde person with a ponytail running their hands across “Tactile Orchestra,” a glossy black fur wall that extends beyond the photographs frame. 
Retrieved from The Senses: Design Beyond Vision.

[1] ‘Bodymind’ is a term used by disability studies scholar Margaret Price to circumvent academic rhetoric that overly emphasizes the physical body. While the two are often conceptualized as separate entities, bodymind signifies the ways that the body and mind not only affect each other but also influence and entangle one another (Price 2015)

[2] Related to “inclusive design”.

Workshop Proposal

Based on these criteria above, I propose a 3-hour participatory workshop at a museum space in Montreal with 4-8 self-identified abled and disabled participants, and three facilitator assistants exploring the relationship between multi-sensorality, personhood and art. This relationship will be explored through collective discussions and the creation of a textile self-portrait by each participant. Following recommendations from The Multisensory Studio and to ground the workshop in relationality, I include the three facilitator roles. They will participate in the workshop prompts while also providing support to fellow participants as needed. This will not only open collaboration and connection between workshop participants but will provide an opportunity for skill development in the acquisition of textile skills and peer support, respectively.

I choose textiles as the main medium because they are versatile (they can be cut, sewn, stitched together, drawn on, dyed etc.) and offer many avenues of knowledge engagement through the basic properties of the material and the varying semantic weight they hold for individuals.  Kathleen Vaughan employs textile collage as an experimental methodology by juxtaposing materials to create connections that prompt discussion (2005, 40). Elise Olmedo utilizes textile maps to understand the sensory and emotional contexts of space among working-class women in Marrakech (2018, 266). Olmedo found that establishing a dimension of tactility within an object allows sensitivity to become a means of knowledge production both within the object created and between object and participant (2018, 265). The world-building and multisensory qualities as well of textiles are central to the decision to utilize them in this workshop format.

Operating within a paradigm of Differential Sensory Design, the textile portrait will be created first through one hour of guided sensory prompts and then 45 minutes of unconstrained creative time. The prompts are designed to first attune participants to their multisensory environment and then move the construction of each textile collage. Participants will first be shown a variety of materials and invited to look, feel, smell, and listen to a selection of them. Beginning questions are designed to attune participants to different relationship that objects may have to our senses and our self-representation such as: “choose a material to represent your name...what does it feel like? What does it sound like when you rub your nails against it?” In this series of example questions, the participants are first asked to relate an object to themselves and then attune to the different sensory properties that that object may contain. They will then be asked to choose a material based on personal preference, to work with as the first element of their collage. Drawing on the ethnographic exercises developed by Elliot and Culhane (2017), participants will build the collage through prompts to feel or “translate” certain memories, personal connections, and favourite things as elements to their textile collage. Material present will include a variety of fabrics in varying sizes and shapes, embroidery thread, yarn, string, ribbon, fabric pens, felt, and raw materials such as roving and feathers. Sewing machines and embroidery hoops will be available for use with assistance but each participant is encouraged to use appliqué glue to create the collage—this is a low stakes assignment where the process is more important than the final product. After a series of prompts, there will be approximately 45 minutes of free time for each participant to elaborate on their piece or experiment with different techniques of sensory representation.

Key Goals:

1.     To explore embodiments of disability and the implications of this for sensory design within a museum setting

2.     For each participant to produce a creative textile collage utilizing a variety of textile techniques and materials

3.     To trial a workshop format that promotes accessibility by centring multi-sensory engagement

4.     The broader goal of this workshop is to foster new dialogues around interacting with art across a diverse range of participants.

The final 45 minutes of the session are dedicated to discussion where each participant will have the opportunity to share their piece and their experiences about the workshop. Participants will also be asked for constructive feedback, what could be changed, if any materials were missing etc. The goal of sharing is to foster a creative dialogue about the workshop and about multi-sensory techniques, while also building connections with fellow participants. The created pieces will also be analyzed for techniques of multi-sensory engagement, participant engagement, as well as the general efficacy of the workshop.

Final words

This paper provides an overview of the convergence between the field of critical disability studies and sensory studies and the implications of this for museum-based accessibility. Through the gathering of literature and careful analysis of three case studies, I demonstrate the fruitfulness of collaboration between the two fields. Differential Sensory Design presents itself as a powerful framework for increasing access to a variety of audience members, especially pertinent for questions of sensory museology. I conclude by introducing a workshop format based on the research and thematic conclusions developed in this probe. By presenting the workshop alongside the conclusion, I assert that this work is in process and will be adapted and refined as the workshop is implemented. The framework of Differential Sensory Design can lead to the development of sustainable museum infrastructures that increase breadth of experiences and engagement available to patrons. While only obliquely addressed in this probe, it should be noted that the increasing role of digital technology, such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, in museum spaces provides another key dimension to be research within the field of sensory studies and Differential Sensory Design. This suggests that further collaborations with digital artist’s and the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) will contribute to the exciting milieux of research produced both within sensory studies and critical disability studies. 

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