The Beacon Project

The Beacon Project –
Accessibility, Haptics, and Re-visioning the Arts Centre

Yvonne Felix introduces the Beacon Project, a Canada Council–funded initiative that examines how haptic technologies and multi-sensory design can transform access to arts spaces and experiences. Framed as both a practical intervention and a conceptual approach, the project asks how arts organizations can move beyond compliance-based accessibility toward environments that actively communicate, guide, and welcome diverse bodies and ways of sensing. 

Their talk outlines the project’s core goals: integrating haptic feedback, tactile cues, and non-visual signals to support navigation, orientation, and engagement within cultural spaces; centring the lived expertise of disabled artists and collaborators; and embedding accessibility directly into infrastructure rather than treating it as an add-on. Yvonne will speak to the project’s experimental nature, emphasizing learning through prototyping, testing, and iteration. Crucially, the Beacon Project has become a catalyst for broader organizational change. Yvonne will reflect on how this work helped pave the transition from Centre[3] to Centre[4] Arts, informing new ways of thinking about program design, capital planning, digital strategy, and community partnerships. Accessibility and haptics are framed not as niche innovations, but as foundational approaches for building more inclusive, responsive, and future-facing arts institutions. 

Speaker Bio

Yvonne Felix is an artist, access-informed professional, and Executive Director of Centre[3] in Hamilton, Ontario. She has over twenty years of experience working across the public, nonprofit, and creative sectors, with a focus on arts leadership, disability-informed practice, and community-based cultural development. 

An award-winning multidisciplinary artist, Yvonne’s work is rooted in public and community art, with an intersection of technology and multimodal methods for audience engagement. Her practice is informed by her lived experience as a blind artist with partial sight and intersects with institutional leadership, policy development, and program design, contributing to inclusive and sustainable approaches within contemporary arts and cultural organizations. 

In addition to her artistic work, Yvonne is the founder of multiple programming initiatives across both the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors, focused on advancing equity, access, and long-term creative opportunities. As Executive Director of Centre[3], she leads the organization’s strategic transformation toward a multidisciplinary, access-driven arts model, supporting partnerships, inclusive programming, and artist-centred opportunities. 

Instagram: @ryfstuff2lookat
IMDB: Yvonne Felix
Website: Yvonne Felix, Public & Community Artist