My life with Sinéad Burke: The office can be very disabling, we help make it more accessible

I was lucky enough to have the chance to collaborate with Met curator Andrew Bolton through my accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens.

Sinéad Burke was recently announced as the overall winner and recipient of a €50,000 grant as part of the Visa 2026 She’s Next Grant Programme Picture: Naoise Culhane.

Seeing two mannequins that had been created using my own body shape, alongside those of others with disabilities, had to be my favourite part of this year’s Met Gala.

‘The Disabled Body’ section, which featured as part of the museum’s Costume Institute exhibition, Costume Art, was the culmination of a lot of hard work, showing fashion through a lens that had never been seen before.

I was lucky enough to have the chance to collaborate on this section with Met curator Andrew Bolton, through my accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens.

The mannequins were made possible with the help of photogrammetry and digital clay scanning of real-life disabled individuals.

These were then brought to life by sculptor Frank Benson, who worked in partnership with Bonaveri. A number of the mannequins’ faces were replaced with mirrors designed by Samar Hejazi.

We curated a section of nine new mannequins for the Met in total, all based on the bodies of real disabled people. Before getting involved in this project, I never thought about the fact that the majority of museums across the world don’t have representations of disabled bodies.

Tilting the Lens is not about visibility for the sake of visibility. There is actually resources and commitment and change happening. The organisation is a global strategic accessibility consultancy built on the pillars of education, advocacy, and design. Our approach is rooted in the lived experience and expertise of a majority-disabled team based across Europe. We realise that not all companies are going to get it right. Not everything you do is going to be accessible to everyone, but our motto is “progress over perfection.” 

Sinéad Burke was recently announced as the overall winner and recipient of a €50,000 grant as part of the Visa 2026 She’s Next Grant Programme Picture: Naoise Culhane.

If we are ambitious about what we are doing, we will eventually get there.

Our 18-month collaboration between Tilting the Lens and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is something that I am really proud of. ‘The Disabled Body’ section of the exhibition wasn’t the only historic milestone for people with disabilities. It was also the first time guests who are wheelchair users were able to attend the event following the introduction of a step-free entrance. The entrance was the first of its kind in the museum’s 78-year history.

We also supported the guides so they were able to bring people on tours of the museum. These are just a few of the changes we have played a role in making since setting up Tilting the Lens in October 2020. The rationale behind founding the company has roots in my background in education and advocacy. 

I have spent a lot of time in design spaces advocating for greater change. What I acknowledged, particularly with the impact of the pandemic, was that when change happens, it is often individual rather than systemic. This can result in solutions being found only for one person or for a small group of people.

The idea was to create an engine for companies to bring about change whether it’s in the arts and cultural sector or in government or public bodies. How we achieve this is through research, strategy, co-design audits and training to support companies of any size to really embed accessibility into what they do. Our global research hub is made up of 600 people with disabilities who are engaged globally for paid research, co-design and consulting opportunities.

Sinéad Burke pictured speaking at the 2025 UCD Festival, which was attended by thousands of people. Picture: Marc O'Sullivan.

We take an intersectional focus. For example, if you are a traveller with a disability, then your experience is going to be very different to a black person with a disability. Lived experiences are at the centre of what we do.

We are really fortunate to be working with some of the largest companies in the world. Most recently, we collaborated with Chanel on a number of projects, including the design of their future London headquarters to ensure it is accessible to disabled employees and visitors. People have been very supportive along the way.

I’ve known the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour, for almost a decade now. She has always been very encouraging of the work that we’re doing, so much so that in 2025 she asked Tilting the Lens to partner with them in the 2025 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund challenge. This saw the 10 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists paired with disabled people to create a capsule collection showcase.

Another focus that we have is on return-to-work policies. Oftentimes, the office environment can be very disabling, whether this relates to the temperature, the corridors, or the automatic doors. Even issues like inaccessibility at the coffee station, where day-to-day conversations happen, can have a significant impact on the way a person works.

The impact of a lot of the things I do might not be seen for years, or even decades to come. It might not ever be seen and that’s okay.

Seeing how the company has grown over the last few years has been a really positive experience.

To be able to speak on stages about the future of design is something I am really grateful for. It took courage of ambition to see that I could lead a team and run a business. To see the form that progress has taken after six years is probably the most rewarding part for me.

• Sinéad Burke was recently announced as the overall winner and recipient of a €50,000 grant as part of the Visa 2026 She’s Next Grant Programme, which offers mentoring and support from some of Ireland’s best-known business leaders. The initiative was put in place to support female-owned small businesses through funding, mentorship and coaching.