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Day Seminars: 2011-12

Design Histories and Design Studies in East Asia

Friday, 25 November 2011, University of Brighton

M2 (Board Room), Grand Parade Building, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton

With the surge of scholarly discussion in the global/ transnational frame, design historians have begun to direct their attentions to design studies and design histories of non-western regions. Recent publications on the development of design outside the Euro-American region reflect this academic trend of inclusion and diversity. As an academic discipline, design histories and design studies in East Asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea) are in different stages of development with specific geographical, historical and cultural conditions.

This seminar aims to investigate similarities and differences in design developments and design histories between regions in order to speculate about a new critical framework for understanding East Asian design in relation to the global state of design culture from a historical perspective. This seminar will explore key questions such as how modernities in East Asian design emerged from interactions with Euro-America, while being characterised by inter-regional interventions, and how they engaged with global innovation and creativity during this process.

The seminar will be an opportunity to connect scholars in UK and Europe in order to generate further discussions and collaborative projects with a wider network of scholars from the East Asian countries.

Programme of the day:

9:30am - 10:15am Registration/ Coffee and Tea

10:15am - 10:30am Welcome

10:30am - 11:00am Dr. Yuko Kikuchi (Reader, TrAIN and CCW College, University of the Arts, London)
'Issues and Perspectives on Writing a 'Global Design History' from a 'National Design History' in Japan'

11:00am - 11:30am Junko Mori (Independent Scholar, RCA Graduate)
'Modern Seating: Japanese Women and the Use of Chair in 1920s and 1930s'

11:30am - 12:00pm Yumi-Kim (PhD candidate, Modern Interiors Research Centre, Kingston University)

'Redefining the Korean National Identity: The Western Shift, Gwangmu Reform and Decorative Arts, 1882-1905'

12:00pm - 1:15pm Lunch

1:15pm - 1:45pm Dr. Simona Segre Reinach (Contract Professor, Iulm University, Milan)
'A New Map of Distinction: Italians Brands in China'

1:45pm - 2:15pm Dr. Wessie Ling (Senior Lecturer, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London)
'transnationality and hybridity of Chinese/ Hong Kong fashion'

2:15pm - 2:45pm Dr. Jiyeon Hong (Independent Scholar, Edinburgh College of Art Graduate)
'Conceptualisation of (Tran-)cultural Identity in South Korean Second-hand Consumer Practice'

3:00pm - 3:30pm Stefan R. Landsberger (Professor of Contemporary Chinese Culture, Dept. of Art, Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
'Chinese posters'

3:30pm - 4:00pm Dr. Yunah Lee (Lecturer, University of Brighton)
'Ideas of Modern Democratic Korea: South Korean posters since 1945'

The Day Seminar is free thanks to the generous supports from the Design History Society and the University of Brighton. For further information please email Dr. Yunah Lee (yl10@brighton.ac.uk)

Day Seminars: 2010-11

Country houses: then and now: formation, patronage and interpretation

Monday, 6 June 2011, University of Wolverhampton

Organiser and contact: Margaret Ponsonby, University of Wolverhampton (M.Ponsonby@wlv.ac.uk)

Draft plan of event (titles tbc)

Jon Stobart (and Mark Rothery) (University of Northampton)
'Rearranging the furniture: fashion, status and personal preference at Stoneleigh Abbey, c. 1730-1800'

Helen Hughes (Historic paint specialist, formerly of English Heritage)
'Past Splendour – Present Pragmatism: recreating 17th century interiors at Bolsover Castle'

Sarah Kay (Project curator with National Trust)
'The Attingham Rediscovered Project'

Lucy Armstrong (Project curator with National Trust)
'Representing Berrington Hall'

Rosie MacArthur (University of Northampton)
'The Hanburys at Kelmarsh: an online exhibition'

Archiving Design Organisations

Monday, 6 June 2011, University of Brighton

The Design Archives at the University of Brighton hold the archives of three major design organisations - the Design Council, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). The aim of this seminar is to develop discussion about particular issues related to the archives of design organisations. As well as including museums, regional archives and university collections, it will engage design organisations that face the challenge of balancing the need to record and preserve their significant heritage with the current demands of records management in a digital era. The histories of design organisations are critical in explaining the wider context of how and why design is provoked, produced, and promoted in broad political and economic frameworks both nationally and internationally. Similarly, it is research into design organisations that has the most potential for engaging other disciplines and research communities, extending the remit of design history within and beyond the humanities.

Speakers included Professor Jonathan Woodham, Director of Research, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton (introduction); Leah Armstrong, AHRC doctoral student (the design profession and the archive of the CSD: a research project); Jo Maude, Design & Art Direction (the D&AD and the archive challenge); Donna Loveday, Design Museum (the Design Museum: its heritage and its future); Susan Bennett, William Shipley Group for RSA history (Over two centuries of design history : the RSA archive).

For more information contact Deborah Hickmott or call 01273 643217

Perspectives on mid-century Modernism

Friday 12 November 2010

Mawby Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN

Despite the popularity of modernist studies in other disciplines, the history of the spatial and material cultures of modernism is only now beginning to progress beyond the historiographical and methodological prejudices of the 1970s. It is timely therefore to examine both new subject matter and new, often interdisciplinary, methods for the history of modernism. Bringing together a range of scholars, from the doctoral to the established, the day seeks to invite a wider public to engage with Design History, as well as foster scholarship and networks within the discipline. Speakers researching different aspects of the history of modernism in the period between c.1920s and 1960s will present their new research exploring hitherto little-considered aspects of this period, and the variety of media which constituted modernist practice at this time.

This event is supported by the Design History Society and is the first of their new Regional Seminar Series.

All are welcome, but places are limited to 50 and must be reserved by Wednesday 10 November. If you wish you may book lunch (£9.50). To reserve a place and/or lunch please contact: edarling@brookes.ac.uk

10.30: Introduction to the day (Dr Elizabeth Darling, Senior Lecturer in the History of Art, Oxford Brookes & Dr Claire O’Mahony, University Lecturer in the History of Art, Department for Continuing Education and Fellow of Kellogg College)

10.40: Professor John Gold (Professor of Geography, Oxford Brookes): Plurality revisited: reflections the changing meanings of architectural modernism

11.20: Elisa Sai (doctoral student, University of Bristol): Notions of Space in 1930s Futurist Aeropittura: Continuity, Innovation and Reception

12.00: Stephanie Bolton (independent scholar, Sussex): ‘A Chronicle of Doing’ - Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Lobster film and the community of Littlehampton

12.20-12.30: morning summing up and comments.

12.30-1.45: Lunch in Kellogg College Dining Hall (must be reserved)

1.45: Robert Chester (doctoral student, Loughborough University): MARS Attacks: Designing the Radio for the Inter-war British Domestic Environment

2.05: Peter Stilton (doctoral student, University of Bristol) ‘The Hidden Persuaders’: British Pop Art and the Fear of Consumer Society

2.35: Dr Sarah Walford (post-doctoral student, University of Warwick) Building the nursery: Donald Gibson and the making of a modern City Architect’s department

3.00: Tea

3.15: Dr Robert Proctor: (Lecturer, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art) Reorienting the Sacred: 1960s Church Design

3.45-4.30: Professor John Gold: reflections on the day followed by questions and comments.

4.30 Close

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