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From Threads to Touch: Sugandha Gupta’s Journey of Inclusive Education through Textiles

Sugandha Gupta wearing a black dres and black leather shoes, sitting in a white chair and smiling at the camera.

I first learned about Sugandha Gupta through a short yet impactful essay about her work in the book Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-racist Non Binary Field Guide. Sugandha, a textile designer and disability advocate,  is an Assistant Professor for fashion design and social justice at the Parsons School of Design. Born in India in 1987, she overcame challenges in pursuing education due to albinism. Sugandha creates multisensory textiles that engage touch, smell, sound, and sight for diverse audiences and explores haptics and sensory engagement for embodied learning. Her work incorporates various materials and techniques, emphasizing accessible design. Despite facing disrespect and challenges, she’s become a respected figure in advocating for touch-based learning experiences.

Sensory Textiles

Sugandha’s work can be easily understood from this webinar she did last year (video below) and summarized in the following buckets:

Image Gallery (click to enlarge)

Disability Led Thinking for Design Innovation at SXSW

Design often seeks simple, elegant solutions but disability brings complexity that should be embraced. More diverse voices are needed throughout the design process.  Sugandha feels like the typical design process should be adjusted to be more inclusive, especially the research phase to include disability history and culture. Direct involvement of disabled people is important.

Sugandha’s unique perspectives are valuable for the design industry. Next year, at SXSW EDU 2024, there is an opportunity for more designers to learn from Sugandha that understanding disabled experiences can transform design by debunking myths around access needs and talking about interdependence, reviewing best practices for collaboration, and co-creating with disabled communities. Sugandha has submitted a proposal to do a workshop highlighting the need for and value of the representation of disabled talents in leadership positions as an approach to design innovation. If you like her approach to design and would like her to present, make sure to upvote her submission on the SXSW EDU 2024 website. Voting is open through August 20.

We need more leaders like Sugandha Gupta to bring focus on the role of conversation in breaking down barriers and bringing people together, especially designers, to understand that representation of disabled talents is critical for design innovation.

Images Source: Sugandha Gupta’s website

This blog was written mostly using chatGPT, a potential tool for increased accessibility. Do you think this is an appropriate use of chatGPT? Why or why not? Let me know!

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