Current Research

From Inclusion to Co-Creation: DEEP_ABILITIES Reimagines Curatorial Practice with Blind and Seeing-Impaired Collaborators

July 24, 2025 –To be updated soon with more information–

The TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater is embarking on an exciting new research prospect. With DEEP_ABILITIES. Curating Multisensory Access and Empowerment with and for the Blind and Visually Impaired, TA T moves beyond the conventional goals of accessibility to empower blind and visually impaired individuals as equal research collaborators in curatorial and scientific work. Rather than designing for inclusion, the project curates with it—recognizing diverse perceptual abilities as crucial resources for knowledge-making.

At its core, DEEP_ABILITIES explores the deep sea—a realm where light disappears and visual dominance gives way to other modes of sensing. Focusing on historical deep-sea specimens held at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the project responds to global shifts in ocean research that increasingly include perspectives from previously marginalized communities.
Over four years, DEEP_ABILITIES will establish transdisciplinary, multisensory laboratories where blind, visually impaired, and sighted participants develop new experimental approaches to marine knowledge. These labs draw on expertise from biology, art, and curating to devise inclusive research and mediation formats that decentralize sight as the primary epistemological tool.

The initiative marks a paradigm shift: from viewing disability as a challenge to be accommodated, toward embracing distinct perceptual worlds as drivers of innovation. Museum visitors will not only encounter new ways of experiencing deep-sea life; they will engage with knowledge shaped by those for whom non-visual perception is foundational. This shift challenges dominant cultural images of the deep sea as an alien darkness and instead proposes it as a space of multisensory richness.

DEEP_ABILITIES also aims to transform institutional structures. By embedding inclusive design and curatorial participation from the outset, it fosters sustainable change within museum operations. The project will culminate in an accessible and participatory multisensory deep-sea archive and a best-practice guide for inclusive museum work with natural science collections.

Ultimately, DEEP_ABILITIES redefines what it means to know, sense, and curate. It invites museums to treat disability not as a limitation, but as deep ability—one that can expand the very foundations of how knowledge is produced and shared.

Project lead: Felix Sattler, Head Curator TA T