Sensory Textiles (Sensory Design)

Sugandha works out of a passion for making through her embodied experience. Growing up with Albinism in India, and without accommodations Gupta carved her pathway of creating access to design processes. She found her strengths in her senses of touch and sound, which enabled her to incorporate these modes of engagement in her work. She uses large eye needles, and touch to thread her loom, felting by immersing herself in the process through touch, and audio descriptions to navigate learning new techniques. She uses many different techniques of manipulating fabrics such as embroidery, sewing, knitting, crochet, and felting and transforms them into tactile and wearable pieces that can be experienced through touch, sound, smell, and sight.

​

Sensory Design is an approach to making through embodied experience & knowledge. It bridges access barriers for disabled & non-disabled bodies by incorporating multiple modes of engagement in offering creative content. It uses accessible guidelines as a generative tool for creation. It broadens the scope of engagement of its creations through multi-sensory interactions. Sensory design encourages designers to reevaluate, recognize, and reconsider their own idiosyncrasies, and the foundation of design rooted in functionality to serve humanity. This approach calls on creative people to add variety and versatility to their creations through critical thinking, centering disability & authenticity in their process. 

​

Gupta encourages her audiences to engage with the disability community by forming relationships, fostering communities, and volunteering at community-oriented organizations. She emphasizes the need to form organic relationships and build an understanding before assuming what any community's needs might be. Her sensory design approach and principles are open for anyone who wants to follow and practice them while crediting and acknowledging her contributions.