Elizabeth Guffey will present at the Modern Design History Seminar on Wednesday, October
23, at 6 pm. Her talk is entitled “‘The
Right to Live in the World’: Design or Disability.”
Building
on the seminal writings of Jacobus ten Borek and his 1966 assertion of “the
right to live in the world,” this talk looks at the underdiscussed subject of
design, civil rights, and the law. From the construction of ramps to the use of
Braille signage, design has played a significant role in implementing the
Americans with Disability Act. In the last thirty years, our designed
environment has been subtly—but significantly—reshaped by this law. But
just how universal are these changes? And how much was the ADA—and its design
culture—shaped by a distinctly American understanding of citizenship,
independence, and “rights”?
Elizabeth Guffey works at the
intersection of art, design, and disability studies. Her book Designing
Disability: Symbols, Space and Society (Bloomsbury, 2018)
argues that designs like the International Symbol of Access or “wheelchair
symbol” can alter the environment, making people more disabled or less,
depending on the design’s planning and use. She is also Founding Editor of
the academic journal Design and Culture. Guffey currently heads
the MA in Modern and Contemporary Art, Criticism and Theory at the
State University of New York, Purchase College.