“[O]ftentimes with design groups that are thinking about disability-related design projects through a medical lens, the design projects seek to kind of remedy or fix someone's body, and that's not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is a specific direction. It’s because the cultural understanding of disability has been highly and historically medicalized that folks—even if they're well intentioned—default to disabled bodies are themselves problematic. But moving away from that means that we're recognizing disabled bodies as just part of human diversity, and if disability isn't located in the body but is instead located at the intersection of bodies and spaces, it really gives a lot of agency to designers to unmake and remake environments.” —Joshua Halstead

Joshua Halstead—designer, educator, and disability advocate—was born with a disability, which shaped his understanding of how his body interacts with different environments from an early age. The combination of living with a disability and actively engaging in design has equipped him with a unique perspective and expertise as researcher on the 2021 NEA-commissioned report Disability Design. In October 2021, Halstead and Grace Jun, designer and CEO of Open Style Lab, joined the Art Works podcast to discuss changing the way designers think about disability.