Reblogged from elushika:
This week, a couple of my instructors in school recommended that we go and see a talk by Sara Hendren. So my classmates and myself decided to trek down to the NYU Polytechnic campus in Brooklyn. I had never ever heard of Sara Hendren, until now.
A little background about her: Sara is an artist, design researcher and professor (1). Most of the work she showcased during her talk was on adaptive and assistive technology, prosthetics, and accessible architecture. Her main research area is in technology and accessibility.
All of us agreed in unison, that her talk was very inspiring. She has designed products along with her students to help people with accessibility issues. She is not an engineer, or a designer or an urban planner. She likes to claim that she is a novice, her words “Acting as a novice can be powerful.” Not knowing helps, because it helps to ask the right questions of how and why with a fresh mind.
The primary focus of the talk was about ‘A house undivided’. Rather than having art and engineering on two separate corners in the room, she wants to mix these 2 areas, so that people could ask questions to create a better product. Her works live in a collaborative environment, where she has worked in tandem with designers, textile artists, and engineers. She said something that resonated deeply with me and that was “To build the right things you need a lot of people in the room.”
Here is similar talk from Sara given at EYEO 2015:
