Podcast appearances and mentions of sara hendren

A Flashback! That's right we're flashing back again to Episode 308 of the Talking Headways podcast with Sara Hendren discussing her book What a Body Can Do. Sara chats with us about how we think and talk about disability, reframing independent living, and designing a humane world for everyone. This is one of my favorites and I'm glad we're getting to share it with folks again. +++ Follow us on Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr ... @theoverheadwire Follow us on Mastadon theoverheadwire@sfba.social Support the show on Patreon http://patreon.com/theoverheadwire Buy books on our Bookshop.org Affiliate site!  And get our Cars are Cholesterol shirt at Tee-Public! And everything else at http://theoverheadwire.com    

Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons Newsletter and the post introducing Great AskingShow Notes:Sara Hendren's Origins Conversationstart of a living conversation (05:20)Ignorance by Stuart Firestein (06:00)questions are the oxygen of imagination (08:00)curiosity is a moral muscle (10:10)The Division of Cognitive Laborby Philip Kitcher (09:20)Sara's substack (10:40)Howard Gardner (11:20)Participatory readiness Danielle Allen (16:40)Living the Questions with Krista (23:30)questions and a state of receptivity (30:20)Sara's blog on voice memos (37:00)vagus nerve (37:00)neuroplasticity (37:30)Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (45:00)The Virtues of Limits by David McPherson (53:30)the healing is in the return - Sharon Salzberg (55:00)Proust QuestionnaireLightning Round (57:30):Overrated virtue: (Krista) independence; (Sara) fortitude as opposed to true courageWords or phrases to retire: (Krista) losing generative to AI; (Sara) communityValuing in friends: (Krista) laughter; (Sara) longevityLowest depth of misery: (Krista) when imagination shuts down; (Sara) tyranny of inwardness and the lie of aloneness (St. Augustine) Find Sara and Krista online:SaraKristaLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by Agasthya Pradhan Shenoy (Swelo)

Our built world is designed around something called "normal," and yet every single one of our bodies is mysterious, and constantly adapting for better or worse — and always, always changing. This is a fact so ordinary — and yet not something most of us routinely pause to know and to ponder and work with. But Sara Hendren has made it her passion, bringing to it her varied vocations and gifts: being a painter and loving how art reveals truth not by way of simplicity, but by juxtaposition; teaching design to engineering students; parenting three beloved children, one of whom has Down syndrome. This is a conversation that will have you moving through the world both marveling at the ordinary adaptations that bodies make and asking, in Sara's words, "restless and generative questions": of why we organize the physical world as though vulnerability and needs for assistance are not commonplace — indeed salutary — forms of experience that reveal the genius of what being human is all about.Sara Hendren is an associate professor in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University in Boston. She previously spent nine years teaching at Olin College of Engineering. Her book is What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. You can also find some of her short pieces of writing on her website, sarahendren.com. Her newsletter is undefended / undefeated.  Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.______Sign up for The Pause — a Saturday morning companion newsletter to the On Being podcast season, and news and invitations all year round.

We find ourselves living in a time of great complexity and flux, where the very fabric of our societies is being rewoven by the rise of artificial intelligence and the interplay of complex systems. How do we make sense of a world that is undeniably interconnected, with increasingly porous boundaries between nature and culture, human and machine, science and art? Paul Wong is reshaping that conversation, drawing on science, philosophy, and art. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Buckminster Fuller (07:40)Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead (09:00)Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin (11:00)Commonwealth Grants Commission (13:10)Range by David Epstein (15:00)David Krakauer (15:20)Claude Shannon and information theory (17:10)Chaos by James Gleick (20:00)Duncan Watts, Barabási Albert-László , and network analysis (24:20)Networks the lingua franca of complex systems (25:20)Stephen Wolfram (25:30)Open Science (28:20)Australian National University School of Cybernetics (28:50)Australian Research Data Commons (29:50)Genevieve Bell (31:20)Ross Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (32:30)Sara Hendren on Origins and Sketch Model (36:30)What he tells his students (38:00)Alex McDowell on Origins (41:00)The Patterning Instinct by Jeremy Lent and Fritjof Capra (47:30)Tao Te Ching (48:20)Morning routine (49:30)Lightning round (53:40)Book: Special relativity and Dr. SeussPassion: MusicHeart sing: Stitching together cybernetics, complexity, and improvisation Screwed up: Many thingsFind Paul online: https://cybernetics.anu.edu.au/people/paul-wong/'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Paul's playlistLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

In this episode, we talk about what a body can do and how we meet the built world. Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer, professor at Olin College of Engineering, and the creator and host of the Sketch Model podcast. She is the author of What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World, published by Riverhead/Penguin Random House. It was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and won the Science in Society Journalism book prize. Sara is a humanist in tech. Her work of 2010-2020 includes collaborative public art, social design, and writing that reframes the human body and technology. Her work has been exhibited on the White House lawn under the Obama administration, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, The Vitra Design Museum, the Seoul Museum of Art, among other venues, and is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Museum. She has been a National Fellow at the New America think tank, and her work has been supported by an NEH Public Scholar grant, residencies at Yaddo and the Carey Institute for Global Good, and an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. At Olin, she was also the Principal Investigator on a four-year initiative to bring more arts experiences to engineering students and faculty, supported by the Mellon Foundation. Episode mentions and links: https://sarahendren.com/ Sketch Model Podcast Engineering at Home AccessibleIcon.org When The World Isn't Designed For Our Bodies via NYT Restaurants Sara would take you to: Clover Food Lab Follow Sara: LinkedIn Episode Website: https://www.designlabpod.com/episodes/115

While The Futures Archive is between seasons, we wanted to share with you another show — Sketch Model from Olin College of Engineering and previous cohost Sara Hendren.Sketch Model is a limited series that delves into the engineering classroom and looks at how perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences shape the why and should questions about the technologies we build. On this episode, Sara  talks to creative technologist Mimi Onuoha about teaching young designers—and artists, and engineers, and creative people whose work lies somewhere in that mix—how to learn. How to learn not just skills for designing the built world, but how to contend with the ideas behind the things we make. To hear more from Sara on TFA check out her episodes on the insulin pump, the refrigerator, and the defibrillator (AED).A transcript for the episode an be found here.The Futures Archive will be back soon with season three! In the meantime check out our back catalogue here, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or however you listen, and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Sara Hendren, associate professor of arts, humanities and design at Olin College of Engineering discusses the importance of keeping engineering students engaged in social and ethical issues throughout their education.

This episode originally aired in October 2020Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering.“Disability knocks at the foundations of individualism […] If needfulness is actually universal, and if slowness is also part of life, and if dependence is partly what makes us human, that actually changes everything in terms of our ideas about the social contract […] The giving and receiving of care is in all of our lives; I think we really do want a world where care is part of the landscape of existence.”Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode originally aired April 19, 2017 — Sara Hendren is a designer, artist, writer, and professor whose work centers around adaptive and assistive technologies, prosthetics, inclusive design, accessible architecture, and related ideas. She teaches inclusive design practices at Olin College in Massachusetts and writes and edits Abler, her site to collect and comment on art, adaptive technologies and prosthetics, and the future of human bodies in the built environment. In this episode, Sara and Jarrett talk about her own background and using design to manifest ideas in the world, the role of writing in her own design practice, and how teaches these ideas with her students. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/24-sara-hendren-rerun. — If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon and get bonus content, transcripts, and our monthly newsletter! www.patreon.com/surfacepodcast

How does the act of care get designed into our everyday lives—beyond medical procedures and technology, into our relationships, our schedules, our lives? On this episode of The Futures Archive, Lee Moreau and Sara Hendren consider the insulin pump, and discuss what it might look like to think about a medical device in the context of all that's actually human.  With additional insights from Jeff Bennett, Gianna Marzilli Ericson, Aaron Oppenheimer, and Christina Harrington. 

So what did you have for breakfast? Did any of it come from your refrigerator? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sara Hendren discuss designing for health and safety within the everyday context of refrigeration and the mysterious coldscape. With additional insights from Jonathan Rees, Nicola Twilley, Vipul Saran, and Robyn Metcalfe. 

Do you notice the defibrillator on the wall or behind the cash register in the places you visit daily? Have you ever been called on to use one? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sara Hendren discuss the defibrillator, designing life-saving machines for everyday users, and the power of the power button. With additional insights from Christine Ball, Rachel Plotnick, and Lucienne Roberts.

Subscribe to The Flourishing Commons - a newsletter to accompany Origins episodes and to build a community around a rich forum for exchange. Sara Hendren is a humanist in tech. This may seem like a strange statement, but it may be a perfect place to pick up Sara's trajectory. She is a brilliant designer, an affecting educator, and just might be the source of language that will transform the way you witness the world. Show Notes:critique and repair (06:55)Generous Thinking Kathleen Fitzpatrick (22:00)Epistemic humilityRelational model of change (22:50)The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle (24:40)Becca Rothfeld 'friendship as a recognition-relation' Danielle Allen 'healthy relationality' (28:30)Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st CenturyEducation for American Democracy: Excellence in History and Civics for all Learners K-12Curriculum of the future (30:00)Danielle Allen What is education for?Trabian Shorters 'asset framing' (36:30)Jonathan Adler and narrative identity (40:00)Theologian William May 'an openness to the unbidden' (43:00)Book: What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World (47:00)New America Think Tank (55:00)Lightning Round (57:00)Book: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard Passion: Philosophy and FictionWorldbuildingHeart Sing: Medieval philosophy and theology Deep TimeScrewed up: Losing perspective on time passing while her children were smallBoyhoodFind Sara online:What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built WorldNewsletter "Undefended/Undefeated"Website'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Sara's playlist

Season two of The Futures Archive launches next week and we're excited to introduce you to our four co-hosts for the season. Just like last season our host Lee Moreau, his co-host, and a variety of experts will explore an object to learn about it's design and cultural history, and unlock a larger conversation about human-centered design and the future. This season, each episode will take an object with power, look for the human at the center — and keep asking questions with our following co-hosts.  Liz Danzico is part designer, part educator, and full-time dog owner. Liz is the Founding Chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and was most recently Acting Senior Vice President, Digital for National Public Radio (NPR), as well as Vice President, Design, responsible for leading human-centered design across NPR's products and platforms.  Rachel Lehrer works on high risk, high reward projects that span violence to pleasure. She builds global, multi-disciplinary teams to design and test life-changing, scalable solutions for those affected by conflict and disaster. She most recently developed a program that resulted in 27% reduction in the frequency of intimate partner violence, in half the time and at half the cost of the leading violence prevention programs. She's now building a company for men with the goal of increasing pleasure for women.  Sloan Leo (they/he) is a Community Design theorist, educator, and practitioner. They are the founder of FLOX Studio, a community design and strategy studio FLOX Studio is on a mission to alter the future of work by integrating community & social justice values, design thinking, and organizational development. We work with nonprofit capacity builders, design institutions, and social impact leaders to foster collaborations, facilitate meaningful conversations and prepare for the near future.  Sara Hendren is a humanist in tech—an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. Her book What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World explores the places where disability shows up in design. In 2021-22, she is Lecturer in Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design and a fellow in Education Policy at the New America think tank, where she is researching the future of work for adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities.

While we are busy making season ten of The Design of Business | The Business of Design, here's an episode from our archives that you might not have heard yet. Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. When we spoke with her in 2019, she talked about her work at the intersection of art, engineering, accessibility, and motherhood. Sara is also one of the co-hosts of season two of The Futures Archive which will be released in March 2022.To hear more from our archive, find The Design of Business | The Business of Design on Apple podcasts, or your favorite podcast app!

This week we will hear a rebroadcast of Sara Hendren's talk at the "Faith &" Humanities forum from January 27. Her talk was titled "When Our Bodies Meet Technology", and explored the technological adaptations developed and deployed by the disabled and differently-abled. The adaptive use and reuse of different forms of technology surfaces a deeper wisdom about bodies as such, and about every human persons relationship with giving and receiving help. Show Notes: Link to Sara's Book: https://tinyurl.com/ytu97npz Link to "Maker Nurse" website from discussion (1:10:54): http://makernurse.com/

Now I'm in my fifties, I'm no longer calling myself ‘young'. That time has come and gone. Being this age, I'm starting to feel the slight insults of my body breaking down. All in all, I'm fine. I adapt, and try to make things easier to accommodate my new limitations. However, all of this is happening to me within the bounds of what you'd call ‘normal.' I'm cognitively and physically in the middle of the bell curve. What happens when you find yourself on the end of the bell curve? What deep adaptation is asked of you? More importantly, how might or should the world better accommodate and welcome who you are? Sara Hendren grew up in a highly conservative, religious, small town in Arkansas. Now, she's a professor at Olin College of Engineering, just outside Boston, in the liberal North East of the United States. Just as she has a foot in each of these geographical worlds, her work also finds her straddling two worlds: humanities and technology. In her life, there have been many instances where she's had to adapt after being thrown a curveball, and she joins me today for a conversation about humanism, accommodation, and adaptation. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/  Sara reads two pages from ‘Life as We Know It' by Michael Bérubé. [reading begins at 12:20]  Hear us discuss: “Nothing human is alien to me.” [9:02] | The effect and reliability of expert opinion: “Expertise, in many cases, is very well-meaning, but it's driven by a really powerful idea of ‘the average.' Statistics and averages are useful to us at population scale, but they fall away when they try to describe our individual lives.” [18:12] | Navigating the line between general statistics and individual needs. [22:36] | Shifting your perspective. [27:03] | The evolution of common space. [32:31]

Today on Boston Public Radio: EJ Dionne talked about the For the People Act, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) rejection of two Republican appointees to a select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capital attacks. He also remembers the life and legacy of civil rights activist Bob Moses. Dionne is a columnist for The Washington Post and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. His latest book is "Code Red: How Progressives And Moderates Can Unite To Save Our Country.” Then, we open the phone lines, talking with listeners about rising COVID-19 cases across the nation. Charlie Sennott discusses his experiences in Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. He also shares his thoughts on Afghanistan's future as the Taliban gains more ground. Sennott is a GBH News analyst and the founder and CEO of The GroundTruth Project. Adam Reilly and Saraya Wintersmith updates us on the latest news from the Boston mayoral race and Massachusetts gubernatorial race, focusing on Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins' nomination for U.S. Attorney of Massachusetts and Acting Mayor Kim Janey's handling of the Patrick Rose case. Reilly is co-host of GBH's Politics podcast, “The Scrum.” Wintersmith covers Boston City Hall for GBH. Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III weigh in on Naomi Osaka lighting the Olympic torch, and Facebook's outreach to faith groups. They also share their memories of the late civil rights activist Bob Moses. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour's African American Heritage Trail, and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at the Boston University School of Theology. Price is the founding pastor of Community of Love Christian Fellowship in Allston. Together, they host GBH's All Rev'd Up podcast. Sara Hendren explains how public spaces have been redefined during the pandemic, and shares how cities and institutions can design space to be more accessible and cost-effective. Hendren is an artist, a design researcher and a professor at Olin College of Engineering. She's also the author of “What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World.” We end the show by asking listeners what changes they would like to see in their neighborhood, post-pandemic.

You've been waiting for it... the grand finale, our fourth and final episode in the mobility, accessibility, and design series! We had such an amazing conversation with Sara Hendren, artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. She eloquently shared her thoughts and experiences with design, art, and accessibility. We discuss many topics that come from her recent book, “What can a body do” where she challenges the notion that disability is only a physical construct, and rather a product of an inflexible, built environment. Follow Sara! Website: https://sarahendren.com/ Follow BOOM! Twitter: @biomechanicsOOM Instagram: @biomechanicsonourminds Facebook: @biomechanicsonourminds

You've been waiting for it... the grand finale, our fourth and final episode in the mobility, accessibility, and design series! We had such an amazing conversation with Sara Hendren, artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. She eloquently shared her thoughts and experiences with design, art, and accessibility. We discuss many topics that come from her recent book, “What can a body do” where she challenges the notion that disability is only a physical construct, and rather a product of an inflexible, built environment. Follow Sara! Website: https://sarahendren.com/ Follow BOOM! Twitter: @biomechanicsOOM Instagram: @biomechanicsonourminds Facebook: @biomechanicsonourminds

How can designers work with people with disabilities to improve the user experience and accessibility of digital technologies? This audio is part of the Reimagining Access: Inclusive Technology for Archives & Special Collections,” online symposium that took place on February 11, 2021. The event was hosted by ArtCenter College of Design and is part of an Institute of Museum and Library Services [IMLS] National Leadership Grant project exploring how to make digital archives more accessible. Results from the symposium will be used to help direct the project and the class which is being held in conjunction with the event. In this podcast... Emerging Directions: Spotlighting innovative projects using accessible technology / Speakers: Elizabeth Guffey (Professor of Art and Design History and Head of the MA Program in Art History at the State University of New York, Purchase College) and Jasmine Clark (Digital Scholarship Librarian, Temple University) Emerging Directions: Spotlighting innovative projects using accessible technology / Speakers: Crystal Lee (PhD candidate at MIT) and Sara Hendren (artist, design researcher, writer and Professor at Olin College of Engineering) Q&A To learn more about the Reimagining Access: Inclusive Technology for Archives & Special Collections project, please visit the Designmatters site. View the full presentations here.

Chris and Jill spent time talking with Sara Hendren about her new book title "What Can a Body Do?" that was released this past September. For a full transcript of this episode please visit https://www.disartnow.org/podcasts/episode-63-sara-hendren

We're haulin' out the mailbag and doing our best to answer your questions about... 1. Why the countess and Marianne flip back and forth between Italian and French 2. Who we think Sybille Blouin is the stunt double for 3. Which characters we resonate with the most 4. What other books we'd recommend Books: Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal https://drawnandquarterly.com/woman-world Spinning by Tillie Walden https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626729407 Fun Home by Alison Bechdel https://dykestowatchoutfor.com/fun-home-2/ Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters https://www.sarahwaters.com/titles/sarah-waters/tipping-the-velvet/9780748129324/ Fingersmith by Sarah Waters https://www.sarahwaters.com/titles/sarah-waters/fingersmith/9781860498831/ Odd Girls & Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman https://cup.columbia.edu/book/odd-girls-and-twilight-lovers/9780231074896 Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidyia Hartman https://bookshop.org/books/wayward-lives-beautiful-experiments-intimate-histories-of-riotous-black-girls-troublesome-women-and-queer-radicals/9780393357622 On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden https://www.onasunbeam.com/ What Can a Body Do? by Sara Hendren https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/561049/what-can-a-body-do-by-sara-hendren/ Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525510567 Caste by Isabel Wilkerson https://www.isabelwilkerson.com/retailers

With vaccinations underway, we’re edging closer and closer to the end of the pandemic. This week, On The Media looks at how the pandemic has shaped what’s possible for the future — from the built environment to the way we work to the way we learn.  1. Sam Kling [@SamKling2], American Council of Learned Societies public fellow, on whether cities like New York were bound to become hubs for disease. Listen. 2.  Vanessa Chang [@vxchang], lecturer at California College of the Arts, explains how pandemics of the past have been instrumental in shaping architecture; Mik Scarlet [@MikScarlet] delineates the social model of disability; and Sara Hendren [@ablerism], author of What Can A Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World, describes how the wisdom of people with disabilities can inform the redesign our post-pandemic world. Listen. 3. OTM reporter Micah Loewinger [@micahloewinger] tells the story of how distance learning saved his friend's life. Listen.  

From December 23rd to January 1st, we will be showcasing our most notable conversations of the year. Today's show: Prosthetics are feats of engineering that some people opt for to live fuller lives. So what if we put that same know-how into adapting our physical world to better serve all people? Sara Hendren teaches design for disability at Olin College of Engineering, and she joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the idea that disability isn’t about a person, so much as the way a person must navigate an unhelpful world. Her new book is “What Can a Body Do: How We Meet the Built World.”

I think a lot of people my age might remember reading about Paul Farmer for the first time in the New Yorker profile by Tracy Kidder in 2000. It conta... https://sarahendren.com/2020/11/19/amcs-the-wringing-of-hands-and-the-courage-to-seek-first-principles/ in the New Yorker profilelong piece on Down syndrome and selective terminationagonistic pluralismmakes the subtextexists in old age

Episode 3 features an in-depth interview with Sara Hendren. Sara is an artist, design researcher, and write who teaches design for disability at Olin College of Engineering. Her work has been exhibited widely and is held in permanent collection of MoMA and the Cooper Hewitt museum; her writing and design work has been featured in The New York Times and Fast Company and on NPR. Hendren has been a fellow at New America and Carey Institute for Global Good. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and children https://sarahendren.com/about/. In this episode, Sara discusses how to shift thinking, and teaching, around disability from assistive design to adaptive design. Her book asks the question: “What might assistance based on the body's stunning capacity for adaptation — rather than a rigid insistence on ‘normalcy' — look like?” In the classroom, Sara resists the approach of tech-savior-ism and rehab engineering, to instead reframe all technology as adaptive: “take a look at your smartphone, the utensils with which you ate your lunch, the glasses or the contacts that you wear every day, the orthotic shoe on one side that's helping you with a more comfortable gait — and call that all technology, find yourself in that big plane of existence, which is just an extended body with stuff that has needs.” The syllabus for the course “Investigating Normal” can be found here - http://aplusa.org/courses/investigating-normal/ The syllabus for the course “Critical Designer/Activist Engineer” can be found here - http://aplusa.org/courses/critical-designer-slash-activist-engineer/ Both courses are part of the Adaptation and Ability Group, a technical and social lab for creative engineering and design on the subjects of disability, which Sara directs. http://aplusa.org/ Read the interview as a transcript, with images and links, on our Medium Publication here - https://medium.com/processing-foundation/createcanvas-season-2-interview-with-sara-hendren-2b51a5adcc44

Sara Hendren was drawn to painting as a kid, studied it in college, then began to build her body of work and career as a fine artist, focusing on painting. Then, a series of experiences sent her in what, from the outside looking in, may have seemed like a very different direction, but from the inside looking out, what a completely organic and aligned expression of her blended passion to see, to create, to design and to be of service.Now an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering, Sara describes herself as a humanist in tech, focusing on the intersection between disability - or the perception of it - and what she calls the built world, or how the world is designed to either support or dismantle freedom and autonomy based on our bodies and their capabilities. And if you’re thinking “well, this isn’t about me,” you’ll quickly discover how well-intended, yet misguided that assumption is likely to be. It’s about all of us.Sara’s work over the last decade includes collaborative public art and social design that engages the human body, technology, and the politics of disability: things like a lectern for short stature or a ramp for wheelchair dancing. She also co-founded the Accessible Icon Project, co-created a digital archive of low-tech prosthetics, and her work has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, The Vitra Design Museum, the Seoul Museum of Art and other venues and is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Museum. Her new book is What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. (https://tinyurl.com/yy8r8wwc)You can find Sara Hendren at: Website (http://sarahendren.com/)Check out offerings & partners: KiwiCo: kiwico.com - 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping - code GOODLIFETotal Gym: TotalGymDirect.com/GOODLIFE - 30-day in-home trial on the Total Gym Fit for Just $1. And an ADDITIONAL 20% OFFSleep Number: sleepnumber.com/GOODLIFE - save 50% on the Sleep Number 360® Limited Edition smart bed

Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. “Disability knocks at the foundations of individualism […] If needfulness is actually universal, and if slowness is also part of life, and if dependance is partly what makes us human, that actually changes everything in terms of our ideas about the social contract […] The giving and receiving of care is in all of our lives; I think we really do want a world where care is part of the landscape of existence.”

This week we’re joined by Sara Hendren, author of the book What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. Sara chats with us about how we think and talk about disability, reframing independent living, and designing a humane world for everyone. 

People, generally speaking, have the wrong idea about disability… or so says Sara Hendren, author of a sharp new book called *What Can a Body Do?* The Olin College professor insists on making us see disability in a more human light and learning from our improved sight. She writes, for instance, that “disability is not a fixed or permanent label that belongs only to some people; it arrives for each of us,” adding that while misfit situations—“a disharmony that runs both ways, body to world and back”—are inevitable, they should ideally be met with resilience and creativity. (Her book teems with story after story of such meetings.) In this *Resonance Test* conversation with producer Ken Gordon, Hendren expands on her book and explains, among other things, how misfit scenarios don't have to be isolating but can, in fact, build community. She talks about aging—“In our own country old age is a really an under-imagined moment of life. We tend to make it super passive, and we tend to patronize older adults in a way that's pretty shameful”—and about the idea of incessant adaptation: “Adaptation is the fundamental state.” Above all, Hendren's words enjoined us to pay attention—to our bodies, the bodies of others, and the environment in which they move about. The point of doing so: Striving to give everyone access to a more pleasurable life and even a richer language. “My hope is that by paying attention, we get better language, meaning, non-jargony, non-expert, non-technical language but just language that is ready to hand for the things in our lives.” Host: Kyle Wing Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

How does “the built world”—the chairs, rooms, and streets that guide our bodies every day— implicitly ascribe worth to human beings? How does the built world welcome or exclude individuals in public space? Sara Hendren, author of “What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World,” talks with Amy Julia about disability and the built world, how disability is fundamental to our common humanity, and reimagining the built world in a way that gives dignity and worth to all human beings.SHOW NOTES:Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, professor at Olin College of Engineering, and the author of “What Can a Body Do?” Connect with Sara:Twitter: @ablerismsarahendren.com/“The world built of stairs, the world built of sidewalks with no curb cuts—all of those things bear out a very tacit presumption about who’s going to be in public space.”“We enter our lives acutely dependent on other people. We often exit our lives also in a period of dependence. And in between we traffic in and out of experiences of needing one another. Within our own mythology about how we don’t need people very much or our sense of autonomy and independence, we know that what makes us flourish is connection.”“I have a body that has needs. We share that.”“How do I want to be treated if I’m even a little bit different than I am now? The way that I treat folks who are currently acutely vulnerable is the logic by which I will be treated. We owe it to each other to be a little more imaginative than we are, and it doesn’t take an overhaul of the world. An editing of a lot of what we have already makes all the difference.”On the Podcast:“What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World” by Sara HendrenRosemary Garland-ThomsonGallaudet UniversitySigning StarbucksBrenda BrueggemannSharon SnyderErik Carter Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today we are talking (a little out of order) about chapter 11. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.

This week we talk to Sara Hendren, an artist, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering about her new book What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World. Hendren's book explores the idea that perhaps many people are disabled not by the shape of their body or how they work, but instead by the shape of the built environment in which they live. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Hendren’s book, What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World, looks at design and disability at all scales: prosthetics, furniture, architecture, urban planning, and more, to examine critically the definition of the good life. Read the related blog post: https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/2020/09/25/the-dignity-of-help-sara-hendrens-what-a-body-can-do/

During COVID, many people have been getting a sore back working from home because they are sitting on a dining chair rather than an office chair. Sara Hendren has been exploring how our bodies interact with the world, and in particular with the chair. Why is it that so many chairs are designed to be aesthetically pleasing rather than functional? And could principals of universal design solve the problem?

Bruce Shapiro on the latest deadly protests, the secret to winning elections with Chris Matthews and Sara Hendren on the design of chairs

Sara Hendren examines how much more accessible our world is to those with disabilities. Gregory Clark of the University of Utah discusses robotic hands. Jeff Speck, city planner and author, outlines walkable city rules.

Prosthetics are feats of engineering that some people opt for to live fuller lives. So what if we put that same know-how into adapting our physical world to better serve all people? Sara Hendren teaches design for disability at Olin College of Engineering, and she joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the idea that disability isn’t about a person, so much as the way a person must navigate an unhelpful world. Her new book is “What Can a Body Do: How We Meet the Built World.”

The White House is sending troops into cities with the stated goal of protecting monuments. On this week's On The Media, a look at the clash over memorials going back to the American revolution. Plus, lessons for redesigning our post-pandemic built environment — from the disability rights movement. And, a conversation about the new documentary "Crip Camp" and the history of the disability rights movement. 1. Kirk Savage, professor of history of art and architecture at University of Pittsburgh, on the early origins of American anti-monument sentiment. Listen. 2. Vanessa Chang [@vxchang], lecturer at California College of the Arts; Mik Scarlet [@MikScarlet]; and Sara Hendren [@ablerism], on issues of accessibility and health in design — past, present, and future. Listen. 3. Judy Heumann [@judithheumann], disability rights activist, on the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the documentary "Crip Camp." Listen.

Sara Hendren is an artist, designer, and writer who teaches design for disability at Olin College of Engineering. On this episode of the PFF Podcast, Sara discusses some of the key arguments of her forthcoming book, What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World, from the affordances of ordinary objects such as ramps to how disability opens up new perspectives on the design of cities and the built environment. Learn more about Sara's book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/561049/what-can-a-body-do-by-sara-hendren/.

Mild Cognitive Impairment. Frailty. You’ve heard the terms right? But did you know that they’re not ACTUAL diagnoses. Meaning there isn’t really any medication that is prescribed that will make it better. And when there isn’t a diagnoses that means that healthcare as a whole isn’t necessarily addressing the needs of these tens of millions of people who suffer from both. Tina and Miya thought it was time to surface these important issues and consider how to support these issues which are easily overlooked. Feeling vexed? We’d suggest starting by taking another listen to Yah, No Episode 29 with artist/designer/researcher Sara Hendren, as her social model of health is a great primer for this episode's topic: The Undiagnosable.

Sarah Hendren is an artist, design researcher, and professor at the Olin College of Engineering.

Hey Yah, No friends! Do you miss us yet? It’s been a whole month since we released our last episode of season 3. Lucky for you, we’ve been working hard to bring you our first ever BONUS episode of Yah, No. If you loved Episode 29–Disability and Social-Minded Design, where we had our conversation with extraordinaire Sara Hendren–(stats don’t lie, we know you loved it), then we can’t wait for you to listen to this surprise follow up episode. Be sure to tune in as we round out our conversation about design, disability and accessibility with Sara’s insights on aging, dependence, and adaptation, and how we can start to reframe our assumptions about what makes a good life. It’s just a little something to get you through these last hot summer months while you eagerly await our brand new season.

For show notes with a complete transcript, links, and more, visit our website at https://www.mapping-access.com/podcast/ and click on this episode.

Sara Hendren is a designer, artist, writer, and professor whose work centers around adaptive and assistive technologies, prosthetics, inclusive design, accessible architecture, and related ideas. She teaches inclusive design practices at Olin College in Massachusetts and writes and edits Abler, her site to collect and comment on art, adaptive technologies and prosthetics, and the future of human bodies in the built environment. In this episode, Sara and I talk about her own background and using design to manifest ideas in the world, the role of writing in her own design practice, and how teaches these ideas with her students. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Episode 1 of ADAPTIVE is an investigation into how we define ability and disability, often based on the technologies people use. We talk to Sara Hendren, Graham Pullin and Aimee Louw about their research and stories about how cultural perceptions frame how disability is understood.