Disability History at the House of Austrian History - 19 November 2025
Disability History at the House of Austrian History - 19 November 2025
Research Seminar co-hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University's Race, Gender, Sexuality and Identities Research Group and Manchester Centre for Public Histories and Heritage
Presented by Vansch Tautter, House of Austrian History
History museums often fail to tell the (hi)stories of people with disabilities. The House of Austrian History, as a national museum of contemporary history in Vienna, tries to change this through its collection and exhibition practices. This talk explores how the museum has adapted its object acquisition process to foster community participation, by including a focus group, oral history interviews and an interactive online exhibition. Additionally, it interrogates the physical and online exhibitions of the museum that use the collected objects. Finally, the talk critically engages with the meanings of these practices for the position of disability history in national heritage.
Vansch Tautter is an oral historian and curator at the House of Austrian History in Vienna. Their research focuses on disability history, cultural history and memory studies. The Disability History Project is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection.
Date: 19th November 2025
Time: 1pm-2pm
Book Here (A Teams link will be circulated to those who book in advance)
MMU Disability Reading Group - Meeting 2: 24 Oct
Manchester Metropolitan University Disability Reading Group - Meeting 2: 24 October 2025
Advertising the regular meetings of the Disability Reading Group, a collaborative, inclusive group that meets monthly to discuss texts considering disability. The group was established by Arlene Jackson, a PhD student with the School of History, Politics and Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University. Everyone welcome.
Meeting 2: Friday 24 October at 1:30pm via Teams.
Chapters 1, 3, 25, 27, 38 (Read as much or as little as you wish) from The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis (5th edn) Routledge
The selected text is The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis. If you have any difficulty accessing the book, please contact Arlene Jackson to arrange access. You can do so by going to this page, and clicking on Arlene's profile picture (bottom left), which will open an email.
Please register by contacting Arlene or leaving a comment below, and we will send through a Teams link in advance of the meeting.
DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lectures Series 2025
DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lectures Series 2025
Advertising a series of upcoming lectures and workshops from DoWell - Design for Health and Wellbeing Research group
At DoWell –Design for Health and Wellbeing Research group– we pioneer the use of collaborative creative processes from craft and design to support people’s mental and physical health and to improve products, environments, services and interactions for health and care. We co-design our research into the social and societal aspects of health and wellbeing with the people who will benefit from our studies. Our research contributes to national and international action on mental health, disability, dementia and neurodiversity.
Everyone welcome. Please register through Eventbrite.
Session 7: Co-Designing with Neurodiverse People: An Embodied Creativity Perspective (FINAL SESSION)
Wednesday 25 June 2025, 3.30-5pm, Online session
Dr Laura Malinin, Inaugural Director, Nancy Richardson Design Center & Associate Professor of Interior Architecture + Design, Colorado State University
This presentation describes two multi-year projects where an interdisciplinary group of researchers and students engaged neurodiverse people in co-design processes to improve inclusion and engagement in community programming. The first case involved older adults with dementia and their care partners to develop community performing arts programming. The second project engaged a group of autistic youth to improve visit-ability at a science museum. The projects will be discussed using the lens of embodied creativity as a framework to explain the design and methods used in the different cases as well as outcomes.
