Accessible and Inclusive Textiles Hackfest
July 5-8, 2022, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sign up by June 27, 2022
We are excited to invite anyone who is interested in exploring, generating, and working with a variety of textile artifacts that center access and inclusion. From knitting patterns that can be automatically modified to address specific access needs, to auxetic harnesses that can comfortably hold a child in a ride on an accessible toy car, we see an opportunity to create new pipelines for equitable participation and access. Similarly, clothing and accessories can express style, support the profile of a body presenting according to gender preference, and fit with specific cultural identities.
We invite you to join us in envisioning accessible and inclusive textile futures by creating new approaches and ideas together during our hackfest.
Judging event and details
Judging will take place on July 11 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. The judges include:
- Billy Price, CEO of BillyFootwear.com, an accessible footwear company
- Vidya Narayanan, Amazon Fashion
- Chris Anderson, Textile Engineer and Technical Director, ZSK USA Inc.
- Adriana Schultz, Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
The prize for the top project will be an embroidery machine.
Mentors
Jennifer Mankoff, CREATE Co-Director and the Richard E. Ladner Professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, whose work is focused on giving people with disabilities the voice, tools and agency to advocate for themselves. She takes a multifaceted approach that includes machine learning, 3D printing, and tool building, at a high level, Mankoff’s goal is to tackle the technical challenges necessary for everyday individuals and communities to solve real-world problems.
Afroditi Psara, a UW assistant professor in the UW Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) and transdisciplinary artist whose research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. Interested in the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects, she uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings, and open-source technologies as educational models of diffusing knowledge.
Daniela Rosner, an associate professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the UW. Her research investigates the social, political, and material circumstances of technology development. She has worked in design research at Microsoft Research, Adobe Systems, Nokia Research and as an exhibit designer at several museums and is the author of several articles on craft and technoculture, including “Legacies of craft and the centrality of failure in a mother-operated hackerspace.”