I wanted the Disabled Body to be an integral part of this exhibition to challenge and redress the representation we have experienced as viewers in the past. I needed a trusted partner to support the research, development and framing of this, and I felt supported every step of the way by Sinéad, Laia and the team at Tilting the Lens. Additionally, Sinéad has been an authentic advocate, advisor, and champion for the Costume Institute, for the Met team, and for our partners and stakeholders.
Increasing representation and accessibility at The Met’s Costume Institute
A collaborative approach to centring the Disabled Body in the ‘Costume Art’ exhibition.
Project Overview
The Costume Institute is a curatorial department within The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) which cares for the more than 33,000 objects of fashionable dress and accessories in The Met’s vast collection. Over an 18-month period, Tilting the Lens proudly collaborated with Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge at the Costume Institute, and the wider Met team to support their spring 2026 exhibition, ‘Costume Art’.
The ‘Costume Art’ exhibition (May 10, 2026 – January 10, 2027) explores depictions of the dressed body across the Museum’s collection, pairing garments with artworks to form connections that reveal the enduring relationship between clothing and the body, and fashion as an embodied artform. The exhibition is organised into a series of thematic body types that reflects how they have endured through time and different cultures, including some that have traditionally been overlooked, such as the ‘Disabled Body’. Tilting the Lens’ primary objective in this work was to support The Costume Institute through a range of services including consulting on the curation of the ‘Disabled Body’ section, contributing to the department’s research on disability representation within The Met’s wider collection, advising on elements of the exhibition catalogue, additional training Museum volunteer guides, and supporting greater accessibility in the exhibition.
The goal
It was important to Andrew and the curatorial team that ‘Costume Art’ examine historic imbalances in artistic representation within The Met’s collection. They wanted to expand the range of designers’ work featured in the exhibition and The Costume Institute’s holdings, and highlight the connection between art, clothing, and the body across centuries of creative output.
Cultural spaces have historically excluded the Disabled body, presenting a key opportunity for institutions and organisations to invest, partner, and collaborate to address these absences. A consistent barrier to diverse representation in fashion exhibitions has been the availability of mannequins representing different body types, along with the inflexibility of the mannequin-making process, which often restricts the poses and range available to curators when displaying garments on Disabled bodies. It was a priority for The Costume Institute that the mannequins in ‘Costume Art’ reflect the diversity of embodied experiences with fashion.
Additionally, the department expressed a desire to build upon its existing resources for volunteer guides to help ensure that they were confident and further equipped to discuss disability and support guests with varying access needs.
Our approach
Guided by The Costume Institute, Tilting the Lens applied a holistic approach to the project, utilising four of our core services, research, strategy, design, and training.
Research
To ensure the ‘Disabled Body’ section was as broad and representative as possible, Tilting the Lens researched design archives for disability-related collections and explored the lived experiences of Disabled designers. This research helped inform curatorial’s pairings of fashions with artworks from other Met departments, sparking new conversations about where Disabled bodies have historically been depicted in art.
Strategy
Tilting the Lens provided strategic framing for this section of the exhibition and catalogue, centring themes of Disability Rights, Disability Pride, and Disability Justice. The intentional naming of ‘Disabled Body’ was an exercise in reclamation, designed to challenge ableist euphemisms.
Design
Tilting the Lens participated in trialing an innovative photogrammetry casting process, which allowed diverse mannequins, including a new digital mannequin of Sinéad Burke, to be created for the exhibition. For this project, the ‘cast’ was done in a cylindrical machine, with 175 cameras placed three inches apart, covering the entire surface area. There was a space inside for the model to step into and every part of the body was captured in the centre of the lenses.
Training
In coordination with The Costume Institute and The Met’s Access team, Tilting the Lens designed and hosted a virtual training programme for the volunteer guides. The sessions covered the models of disability, the use of disability-first terminology, introductions to brief visual descriptions for Blind or low-vision guests, and practical scenarios for supporting visitors who may be over-stimulated or require a place to rest.
Testimonials
Outcome and impact
The ‘Costume Art’ exhibition successfully honours the beauty and validity of the Disabled body, communicating to visitors that disability is an inherent part of the human experience. Pieces by Disabled designers and artists including Justin LeBlanc, Helen Cookman, Lou Linderoth, Nolan Trowe, and Sugandha Gupta are included in the exhibition. The mannequins, which feature polished steel in place of faces, successfully allow visitors to see themselves reflected in the garments and diverse body types. A number of Disabled people’s bodies, including those of Aariana Rose Philip, Sonia Vera, Antwan Tolliver, and Aimee Mullins, are also represented in the exhibition.
A core principle at Tilting the Lens is building legacy memory so that accessibility remains part of an institution’s long-term fabric. To encourage future academic research into the ableism present in design systems, Sinéad Burke donated two garments to the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, ensuring that the Disabled experience remains an accessible resource for future scholars and designers.
The exhibit was profoundly emotional for me. Knowing that the mannequins were modeled on real Disabled people changed everything. It was not abstract. It was not symbolic. It was embodied. It was intimate. It felt like our bodies, so often misunderstood, hidden, corrected, medicalized, pitied, or treated as an inconvenience, were finally being given space, form, beauty, authority, and reverence. I felt enormous pride. Pride in you. Pride in us. Pride in the quiet, radical power of Disabled bodies being present in one of the most important cultural institutions in the world, not as tragedy, not as inspiration, not as an afterthought, but as design, history, politics, elegance, and truth.
(Exhibition visitor) Cara Yar Khan, Senior Advisor, Global Disability Innovation Hub
Further Reading
Reflection
Tilting the Lens and the Met – a story of accessibility and representation in ‘Costume Art’ (opens in a new tab)
A personal reflection from Sinéad and the team about the working on the project
The Met
Visit the Costume Art exhibition (opens in a new tab)
The exhibition runs until January 10, 2027 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
From audit to equitable environment – RDS ESB Science Blast, an event that leaves no child behind
Making the RDS ESB Science Blast one of the most accessible and human-centred experiences for schools in Ireland.
Project overview
At Tilting the Lens, our three core pillars are education, advocacy and design. When they come together, true accessibility is feasible. It’s for this reason that we are very proud to have partnered with the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) to complete an accessibility audit for their landmark student event, ESB Science Blast.
ESB Science Blast is a non-competitive educational programme for primary schools across Ireland aimed at fostering young scientific minds, and to ignite curiosity in STEM learning. Primary school students are invited to work as a class to explore a simple question that science may help to resolve and to exhibit their work at an annual event at the RDS in Dublin. The students also get the chance to see the varied possibilities a career in STEM can offer with a variety of exhibitors from different disciplines that use science in their operations who offer hands-on and fun STEM experiences and demonstrations.
Tilting the Lens worked with the RDS to build upon what is already a well-regarded and thoughtfully executed event, to consider accessibility beyond compliance, evaluating the venue’s physical, sensory, and communication environment through a human-centric lens. By analysing the end-to-end experience for students, educators, and staff, the project sought to identify how a high-capacity, education-focused event can be made truly inclusive for Disabled people.
Science Blast is sponsored by ESB (the Electricity Supply Board in Ireland) and led by RDS (the Royal Dublin Society). The event also tours to venues regionally.
The challenge
The RDS faces the complex task of designing and hosting a large-scale, high-energy event, welcoming thousands of children daily in a historic campus that presents barriers to full participation.
While we were assessing the event as hosted at RDS Dublin, we were also aware that learnings could be carried to the other host venues in Belfast and Limerick. The ESB Science Blast event is one that will live long in the memories of the children who attend and presents an opportunity to demonstrate accessibility and inclusion in action to the thousands of children who take part.
The key challenges included:
The need to maintain the seamless movement of large groups of children through every part of the site from arrival, parking and entrance, navigation through exhibition spaces, and high energy interactive displays and shows, facilitating lunch break, sanitary accommodation, first aid, and safe exit. Prioritising child safeguarding at all times.
The venue is an older multi-purpose warehouse-style large space with high ceilings and no natural light. It is subdivided for the purpose of the ESB Science Blast event but is difficult to manage in respect of noise travel between competing stages, and to facilitate quiet or sensory-friendly zones.
The performative-element shows combine loud noises, bright lights, on-stage and audience participation presenting challenges for sign language interpretation, real-time captioning, audio-description, and for the experience of neurodivergent attendees.
The approach
Tilting the Lens conducted a comprehensive accessibility audit during the event to capture observations during peak event capacity and to witness the real-time barriers in crowd flow and opportunities for participation.
We conducted a zonal analysis, mapping the site as distinct areas, including the exhibition hall, interactive exhibits, performance stages, staff facilities, and sanitary accommodation, identifying pragmatic solutions to address physical, cognitive, and sensorial barriers to accessibility.
Central to our approach to recommendations was the need for communication, including sharing pre-visit illustrated narratives describing what to expect at the event (e.g. noise levels, entry procedures, what a performance looks like) with teachers and students.
Communication recommendations extended to wayfinding and signage at the event, and how some simple changes could improve the overall experience for everyone.
Our approach to the audit was both practical and strategic, and included collaboration with the event management team and staff training to share learning from this event that could apply more widely across the RDS campus, and to align third-party external vendors with RDS accessibility values.
Tilting the Lens advocated for feedback channels to gather input from parents, teachers, and students, specifically focusing on Disabled children’s experiences, to help continuously improve accessibility and ensure the programme meets the needs of all participants.
Following the delivery of a comprehensive report document, a feedback loop meeting with the ESB Science Blast team went through key recommendations with an opportunity to discuss barriers to implementation. Later in the year, the full RDS event team had an opportunity to attend Disability Awareness training. Ahead of planning for the 2026 event, a focus group was facilitated with ESB Science Blast teachers from Additional Educational Needs (AEN) Schools to reflect on their experiences of supporting their students at the event, and to identify any remaining barriers to participation that could be solved for in the future.
Outcome and impact
A school field trip or tour is often a highlight of a student’s experience, but for Disabled students or Disabled teachers, their experience can often be unequal. Trips to zoos, activity centres, or educational events are often planned and booked by those with good intentions, but they may make an assumption that the teacher is non-Disabled, or make a judgement that a Disabled child might be happy to observe, rather than participate.
This project was ambitious to ensure that all children, teachers, guardians, and visitors can engage with the ESB Science Blast programme at the RDS safely, comfortably, and with dignity, and ensure that all of Ireland’s future scientists, innovators, and educators feel seen, supported, and empowered.
“Real inclusion doesn’t happen by accident, it’s something we build together, intentionally and with care. At ESB Science Blast, we want every child to feel that this event is for them, that their curiosity is welcome, and that they can participate fully in the excitement of discovering how the world works. Working with Tilting the Lens has been transformative. Their honesty, expertise, and partnership helped us see our event through new eyes and understand where we could do better. That process felt collaborative, practical, and grounded in a shared belief that inclusion should be lived, not just stated.
We’re committed to continuously improving, listening, and learning so that each year becomes more accessible for every student and educator who walks through our doors. That’s the kind of event and the kind of future we want to create.”
– Amy Harrington, RDS Science and Technology Programme Manager
Building strategic foundations and long-term growth with Intoart and Trifle Studio
An accessibility strategy built on core values
Project overview
In 2023, Trifle Studio approached Tilting the Lens to help them set and achieve their growth and accessibility strategy over a three-year period.
Trifle Studio was founded in 2022 by visual arts charity Intoart as a multidisciplinary design studio in the UK whose work is created by artists and designers with learning disabilities.
The challenge
The goal of the collaboration was to work with Trifle Studio to grow and expand their reach, while continuing to strengthen their core values. Tilting the Lens would help draw up and support plans for strategic growth and increased industry visibility through media and client outreach, exploring their financial model, and leadership development.
Importantly, phase 3 of the collaboration included a full accessibility audit for Intoart and Trifle Studio, ensuring that their external and internal communication followed accessibility best practices.
The approach
The project with Trifle Studio was split into 3 phases across 3 years:
- Strategic planning and foundations
- Organisational growth
- Accessibility and capacity building
Phase 1: Planning priorities for the year
Phase 1 kicked off in February 2023 with a one-day in-person session between Trifle Studio leadership, the artists and designers, and Tilting the Lens, to align across the strategy for 2023-2024.
In this session, we covered upcoming projects and Trifle’s 2023 commissions, PR and communications planning, and leadership and recruitment. In March, Tilting the Lens delivered an action plan with recommendations for client engagement, artist development, and increasing industry visibility.
Phase 2: Affirming core mission while expanding
In the second phase of the project, Trifle Studio’s focus shifted towards strategic growth and expanding their reach and reputation, while also developing leadership. This meant that Tilting the Lens was supporting Trifle Studio across four core pillars:
- Mission Reaffirmation: strengthening the studio’s values and expanding engagement.
- Partnerships: identifying collaborators, clients, and media opportunities.
- Sustainable Funding: exploring diversified, equitable income streams.
- Future Planning: equipping the team to adapt to shifting trends and needs.
Phase 3: Building capacity and focusing on accessibility
Phase 3 continued to build on the studio’s capacity and capabilities, and included an accessibility audit of materials, followed up by recommended improvements.
Accessibility audit
- Tilting the Lens carried out an accessibility audit across Trifle Studio’s social media, website, and communications, including recruitment materials, budgets, and contracts. We offered guidance on public-facing exhibition materials, access rider templates, and inclusive practices across the board.
- In November 2024, Tilting the Lens and a guest graphic designer led a workshop that focused on accessibility for neurodivergent and Disabled audiences, with a toolkit for practical use.
Easy Read integration
- As part of the accessibility action plan, Tilting the Lens recommended Easy Read integrations into documents including policies, timetables, welcome packs, and consent forms.
- A charity organisation that specialises in creating Easy Reads joined (virtually) Trifle Studio and Tilting the Lens for an in-person feedback session to discuss next steps.
Expanding the network
The final focus of Phase 3 was creating a directory of Disabled creatives for future commissions, as well as recruiting trustees with a focus on lived experience. As part of this, Tilting the Lens helped improve the accessibility of the recruitment and outreach process, and made network recommendations.
Throughout the project, members of the Tilting the Lens team led in-person sessions at their studio in Peckham, London, to meet the artists and to make the meetings more accessible for the team as a whole.
Reports, feedback documentation, and all deliverables were always offered with a follow-up call to discuss and receive feedback. The documentation was provided in an accessible format.
Outcome and impact
This long-term project has been highly fruitful, with Tilting the Lens and the charity behind Trifle Studio, Intoart, establishing a collaborative and supportive relationship.
- Within the studio, structured systems and processes were implemented, and communications were made more inclusive. Specific examples include increasing the accessibility of budgeting and finances for all stakeholders and creating templates for artists’ access riders to send to clients ahead of projects.
- Trifle Studio now has roadmaps in place for Learning Disabled people to be increasingly involved in the strategic planning and future of the organisation.
- Externally, Trifle Studio has broadened its network of collaborators and clients, garnering wide publicity when six artists with learning disabilities were featured in the May 2023 issue of British Vogue, showcasing their work at Trifle Studio to a global audience.
- While the project concluded in May 2025, Tilting the Lens’ Senior Consultant, Emma Shaw, is joining Intoart’s board of trustees to help advance the organisation’s exceptional work and future strategic objectives.