This project researches the importance of making art accessible by working with National Federation of the Blind (NFB) members to create Canes Chiming In (CCI), a non-visual public art installation. Literature reviews, surveys, and case study interviews aim to investigate the following questions:

• What physical, educational, and social barriers prevent blind people from engaging in the arts?
• What is the best way to make art accessible?
• What makes art enjoyable non visually?
• How do blind people benefit from art opportunities?
• How does art change attitudes about disability?

Research will be presented via an interactive digital resource guide and an immersive, accessible art experience. Findings will be shared with 1) NFB members, 2) parents of blind children, 3) teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs), 4) museum coordinators/arts educators, and 5) Colorado state legislators.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sydney Skybetter
Community Partners: National Federation of the Blind, Colorado Center for the Blind, Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind

Rishika Kartik is a "creative activist" and disability advocate who feels fortunate to have worked with the blind community for several years. As the founder of “Touch and Create Studios” and the “Vision of the Artist's Soul” project, Rishika champions museum accessibility and creates tactile art experiences for blind people nationally. She is a sighted member of the National Federation of the Blind and a board member of Mirror Image Arts, a nonprofit that disrupts the school-to-prison pipeline through participatory theater. She enjoys teaching, learning, advocating for legislation at the Capitol, and doing educational research at the Bedny Lab at Johns Hopkins and the American Foundation for the Blind. Rishika is a 2022 US Presidential Scholar, a Coca Cola Scholar, a Live Más Scholar, a TEDx speaker, and the recipient of multiple arts grants. At Brown, Rishika is a Student Associate for the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces, a 2023-2024 Studio Lead and accessible designer for Design for America, and the Chief Arts Coordinator for Brown Arts and Politics. She has teamed up with blind students at Brown to create a “Blindness, Arts, and Media” course and is collaborating with peers on a research grant, “Constructing Illness: Critical Perspectives on the Medical Model of Disability.” Planning to pursue an independent concentration in “Disability and Design,” she believes accessibility unlocks new ways of thinking, connecting, and experiencing the world.