Sara Hendren
[email protected] • 323.791.8810 aplusa.org • ablersite.org • slopeintercept.org • accessibleicon.org
Research
Topics • • • • •
adaptive technologies and architecture high- and low-tech prosthetics critical disability studies biopolitics medical humanities
Contexts & Methodology • • • • • •
critical and experimental design research-driven social arts practice design artifacts, but also conditions, systems, narratives digital-material, networked practices art-science collaborative research academic and journalistic writing
Education
Sara Hendren
2013
Harvard Graduate School of Design With Distinction, MDes: Master in Design Studies Art, Design, and the Public Domain
2002
University of California, Los Angeles MA, European History Cultural & Intellectual History of Modern Europe; Art History; History of Science
1994
Wheaton College BA, Studio Art Painting and Drawing
1
Curriculum Vitae
Fellowships, Grants, and Residencies 2015
Olin College Faculty Development Grant
2015
Olin College Curriculum Innovation Grant
2012-2014
Lincoln City Fellowship Unrestricted $40k artist grant for Slope : Intercept, Abler, and related projects
2012-2013
MetaLAB at Harvard Research Fellow, Slope : Intercept
2012
University of California Humanities Research Institute Artist-in-residence, Slope: Intercept
2011
Awesome Foundation Fellow, Accessible Icon Project
2002–2003
2001
1999–2002
Fulbright Scholar, The Netherlands Dutch popular arts and colonial politics between the World Wars Center for European Studies, UCLA Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, theories of play in European culture University of California, Los Angeles University Fellowship
Invited Presentations Lectures
Sara Hendren
2017
University of Michigan School of Art and Design, Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, Feb 2 CUNY Graduate Center, The Futures Initiative, Feb 8 Carnegie Mellon School of Design, March 6 DisArt Festival, April 8 Vassar College, September 14
2016
Eyeo Festival, Keynote, June 9 MediaCity Seoul Biennial, Workshop Lecture, Sept 3 Caltech, Art and Technology Lecture Series, May 10
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Curriculum Vitae
2015
NYU Ability Lab, October 2 Wesleyan University, October 1 Google Creative Lab, September 28 Eyeo Festival, June 2 School for Poetic Computation, April 24 MIT Design & Computation Lecture Series, April 17 Vanderbilt University, Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, February 24 Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, January 14
2014
Montserrat College of Art, artist lecture series, October 30 School for Poetic Computation, NYC, artist in residence, October 15 University of Toronto, January 18
2013
Grinnell College, Technology & Culture lecture series, visiting artist, Sept. 11-12 NYU, Media, Culture, and Communication, April 11 NYU, Council for the Study of Disability, April 10 Brandeis University Women in Science Initiative, February 28
2012
Institute for Human-Centered Design, Boston, November 13
2011
NerdNite Boston, July 25 Bunker Hill Community College, October 26
2009
Gordon College, November 9
Guest Lectures in University Courses 2015
Northeastern University, “Understanding Design,” November 5 Brandeis University, “Bio-Inspired Design,” June 30 Harvard Graduate School of Design, “The Mixed Reality City,” April 29
2014
Lesley College, Graduate School of Education, December 8 Harvard Graduate School of Education, Arts in Education, October 10
2013
University of Massachusetts, Lowell, October 3
Conference Presentations 2016
Sara Hendren
No Permission, No Apology, MIT Media Lab, Sept 9 Museum as Teaching Lab: Experiments in Inclusive Design, Harvard Art Museums, Hubweek, Sept 25
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Curriculum Vitae
2015
Design panel, MIT Hacking Arts, September 26 “Teaching Accessibility,” Boston Accessibility Group, September 18 “Designing for Disability: How We Live and How We Might Live,” Design History Society, September 12 “Art and Activism,” Eyeo Festival, June 2 “Diversity: Seven Voices on Race, Gender, Ability & Class for FLOSS and the Internet,” Carnegie Mellon University, May 26 “Criticality and Disability,” Biocode, University of Pennsylvania, April 9
2014
“Beyond the Women in Tech Talk,” Libre Planet, March 22 “Power of Ideas,” Boston Magazine Ideas festival, November 7
2013
“High-Tech Lab, Low-Tech Workshop: Informal Prosthetics” 4S: Society for Social Studies of Science conference, October 9-12 “On Abler,” Tech@LEAD invite-only technology symposium, Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability, Kennedy Center, Washington DC. August 20, 2013 “‘User-Centered’ or ‘Universal Design’? An Interdisciplinary Conversation,” Society for Disability Studies conference, June 25-29 “The Political Physics of the Inclined Plane,” Society for Disability Studies conference, June 25-29 Participant, Science FOO, invite-only “unconference” on science and technology at Google headquarters, Mountain View, CA. June 19-21 “New Modes and Spaces for Cultural Production,” at Connected and Consequential: Artists and the Future, Artists in Context, May 7-8
2012
“What is Today’s Public Art?” New England Foundation for the Arts, September 27 “Games for a New Climate,” Boston University Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Term Future and Artists in Context, March 12
Selected Exhibitions & Collections
Sara Hendren
2016
MediaCity Seoul Biennial, Seoul, South Korea
2015
This Is For Everyone: Design Experiments for the Common Good, MOMA,NYC The Flesh of the World, Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto
2014
Waking the Machines: Assistive Technologies and Prosthetic Agency, interactive performance and symposium, OCADU and Interaccess Gallery, Toronto Senses of Care: Mediated Ability and Interdependence, Calit2 Gallery,
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Curriculum Vitae
University of California, San Diego
2013
Accessible Icon Project acquired for permanent collection, Architecture & Design division, Museum of Modern Art (NYC). Disabled by Normality, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague Cripping Cyberspace, part of the Common Pulse festival
2009
Drawing As Encounter, Gordon College Barrington Center for the Arts
2008
Habeas Lounge, CUNY Graduate Center Gallery Intersection, Outpost for Contemporary Art/Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA Home Front/Get Out of Jail Free, Marin Community Foundation Patriot Acts, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA
2007
Make Me a Beast Half as Brave (two-person show) Napoliello Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA ANA 35, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana Get Out of Jail Free, Visual Aid, San Francisco ArtFutura 2007, Chicago Cultural Center
Publications Books In Progress
Investigating Normal
Book Chapters 2016
“Slope Intercept: Notes on an Inclined Plane,” in Jos Boys, Ed., Architectural Design and Disability: A Critical Reader, Routledge
Journalism
Sara Hendren
2014
“All Technology is Assistive: Six Design Rules on Disability,” Medium (Backchannel series)
2013
“An Ethics for the Future of Genetic Testing,” The Atlantic Tech “The White Cane as Technology,” The Atlantic Tech
2011
“Toward An Ethics of Estrangement” Organs Everywhere, Vol II.
5
Curriculum Vitae
“Beyond Ramps: Curitiba, Brazil” In Bordertown, invited essays as part of the Detroit Design Festival, September 15.
Book Reviews 2010
Review, Neurodiversity: Discovering the Hidden Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences. Metapsychology Online, July 20
Teaching 2014—
Assistant Professor, Olin College of Engineering Critical Designer, Activist Engineer This course is a design elective, co-created with a materials scientist colleague, Deb Chachra. The course involves weekly volunteerism, reading, small experiments, and a final project proposal. Class material and discussions cover the pitfalls of design and development, themes of privilege and power, guests from art, design and engineering fields, and more. Investigating Normal: Assistive and Adaptive Technologies This is an advanced design course I created to be a disability studies course in a design-build studio, now in its fourth iteration. Engineering students partner with individuals and organizations to design or design-build prosthetics, adaptive and assistive technologies, or other aids. Part critical seminar, part design studio, the course takes an investigative stance toward the perspective and ethics but also material choices in design. User-Oriented Collaborative Design At Olin, all sophomores take this design course in their second semester. It’s a deep dive into design research, ethnographic practices, and crafting the design proposal and narrative–all without actually building products. We purposely immerse students in understanding and engaging responsive design behaviors, to counteract their bias toward mere technological novelty. Design Nature This is a first-semester freshman course in bio-inspired design. Students have one significant individual project and one significant group project, the latter of which has real-life stakeholders in the form of local fourth grade students, who come to campus to evaluate the end products. The course packs in a number of learning objectives about design behaviors and practices, teaming lessons, fabrication skills, first design reviews, and more.
2013-2014
Adjunct Lecturer, Digital + Media / Industrial Design, Rhode Island School of Design Next Generation Wearables Cross-listed for undergraduates and graduates in both Industrial Design and Digital + Media, this course mentored students in design proposals for wearable technologies that take account for the future of the environment, health, and wellbeing.
Sara Hendren
6
Curriculum Vitae
Graduate Seminar, Industrial Design This seminar trained graduate students in design research and design “disposition”: a critical process of identifying one major research area and exploring design proposals targeted for experimental, discursive, commercial, and socially-minded purposes.
2008–2010
Adjunct Lecturer, Modern and Contemporary Art, Gordon College Modern Art Survey A lecture-and-discussion, writing-intensive course for upperclassmen, taking a critical look at the narratives of the avant-garde and their strategies for addressing the social and political realities of large-scale war, Anglo-European industrialization and urbanization, and fin-de-siécle theories of psychology and human behavior.
2007–2008
Computer Lab Teaching Assistant, Tierra del Sol [day school for developmentally disabled adults, Sunland, CA] Worked with adults with a range of disabilities to physically and cognitively access digital media of their choosing. Set up appropriate problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and writing tasks as desired.
2000–2002
Lecturer and Teaching Fellow, European History, UCLA History of Modern Thought, 2001-2002, full-year course taught as part of Freshman Cluster Program. Teaching Fellow for two trimesters in western “great books” tradition, followed by an independently designed seminar course that ran in the third trimester. My seminar, “How to Change the World,” took up Marx’s exhortation to “put philosophy on its feet.” Each student and I all engaged in a community service project as part of the activism, citizenship, and social justice theme of the course readings and writing assignments.
2000-2001
Service 2016-2017 2016-2017 2015-2016 20152014-2015 2014-2015
Teaching Assistant for courses on European political history and history of medicine
To the College Chair, Diversity and Inclusion Committee Angel Advisor, Senior Capstone Experience Faculty Search Committee Engineering Program Group Strategic Fabrication Committee Angel Advisor, Senior Capstone experience
To the Profession Founding/Steering Member, Boston Civic Media Consortium & Network
Sara Hendren
7
Curriculum Vitae
Advisory Board, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, and Technoscience journal Faculty Advisory Board Member, Open Style Lab, MIT
Selected Bibliography/Press 2016
“Seoul Cycle.” Artforum, September 14 “How the Accessibility Emoji Got Its Start.” The Ringer/ Medium, August 13 “Physics + dance + wheelchair = Art.” The Boston Globe, April 20
2015
“The This is For Everyone Exhibition Reveals Future of Philosophy,” New Scientist, Dec 27 “Modernized handicapped symbol gets support, but problems remain.” The Chicago Tribune, Oct 26 “The future of assistive tech is surprisingly simple.” Al Jazeera, August 17 “The exoskeleton’s hidden burden.” The Atlantic Tech, August 7
2014
“Icon for Access,” 99% Invisible Podcast, February 18 “Aesthetic Advocacy: An interview with designer and scholar Sara Hendren, Chris Smit, Journal of Visual Art Practice, spring issue “An Interview with Sara Hendren,” Superflux director Anab Jain, November 7
2013
“Wheelchair Icon Revamped by Guerilla Art Project.” The Boston Globe, December 14 “Pretty Ramp Machine,” Medium, Weird Future channel, December 9 “Conversation between Amanda Cachia and Sara Hendren.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Vol II, No. 4 “Inclined to Help: What if disability is a consequence of bad design?” The Magazine, September 19 “New Handicapped Sign Rolls Into New York City.” NPR, All Things Considered, July 7 “How A Guerilla Art Project Gave Birth To NYC’s New Wheelchair Symbol.” Fast `Co Design, June 6 “The Accessible Icon Project Revamps Famous Isotype.” Print/Imprint, June 6 “A Team of Academics Redesigns an Icon.” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 20
Sara Hendren
2012
“Inside the Prosthetic Imaginary: An Interview with Sara Hendren.” Rhizome, October 4
2011
“Cambridge Artist Sara Hendren Promotes Wheelchair Symbol Update.” Boston Globe, February 21
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Curriculum Vitae
Sara Hendren
2008
“Editing the City,” Oscillator blog, Scientific American, August 2 “Art Exhibit ‘Acts’ Out First Amendment Issues: Transcending Partisan Politics in 18th Street Art Center’s ‘Patriot Acts.’”
2007
“Pajaros Profesores” [“Bird Teachers”] [artist profile] La Revista Mensual del Siglo XXI (Madrid)
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Curriculum Vitae
