Introducing our New Ambassadors: Alice Ji-Won Kim

Society News

19 March, 2026

We are pleased to introduce the newest members of the Design History Society team: our new Ambassadors! Our final new Ambassador is Alice Ji-Won Kim, a recent graduate of the MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and your specific design history interests

Hello, I am Alice, a recent graduate of the MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Born and raised in Seoul and now based in London, I am committed to working in the commercial art world while grounding my writing in lived experience. I currently work at London Glassblowing with Peter Layton, a key figure in the British studio glass movement of the 1970s, who remains remarkably active as he approaches 90 next year.

My interests lie in cross-cultural transmission, aesthetics, and spaces of display, as well as in the ways people encounter, consume, and interpret them in everyday life. At the centre of my research is exhibition design history from the nineteenth century to the present: from East Asian-influenced decorative arts and grotesque Victorian interiors, to interwar gallery and display aesthetics, and, more recently, to Asian diaspora and craft both within and beyond the white cube.

Is there a particular object that is key to your research? If so, please share your interest in it

I am very pleased to introduce Christopher Dresser’s Linthorpe sake bottle, the principal object I presented at last year’s DHS student conference and the one that ultimately led me to this role. Although different in design, the sake bottle sold in the 2019 Lyon & Turnbull sale (lot 140), with its subtle dark green-to-amber glaze, upholds a standard comparable to that of the ashtray in the British Museum. The existence of this object is undeniably connected to Christopher Dresser’s visit to Japan, revealing not only the influence of Japanese culture on this prolific Victorian designer, but also his exceptional connoisseurial eye for the grotesque within Edo visual culture. At first glance, this may be difficult to register because of the monk’s gentle smile, yet the object is in fact visually disquieting: the Buddhist monk’s head and hands emerge from the fluid form in a way that suggests dismemberment. At the same time, it is a sublimely beautiful object, and its effect becomes even more striking when one imagines it in use. One can easily picture a hand gripping the bottle firmly, making it appear as though the little monk is being squeezed within the grasp. Alongside the act of pouring and drinking the sake contained within the vessel, the object evokes the unsettling impression of drinking a body’s internal fluid. And yet, despite this unsettling quality, it remains a remarkably beautiful work of art, even somewhat spiritual.

How did you get into design history?

I completed my BA at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. While training and practising as a designer, I was especially drawn to catalogue design, exhibition design, and curation. Over time, however, I realised that I felt more intellectually at home writing about art and history than producing design itself. That shift led me to question the legacies of modernism and imperialism in the contemporary art world, particularly the dominance of the white cube and the hierarchies between fine art, decorative art, applied art, and design. Through my Master’s, I developed these interests further, investigating the emergence of the white cube in British galleries of the 1930s.

What are you looking forward to most about being a DHS Ambassador?

I am looking forward to the upcoming student conference and to creating space for emerging design historians in my role as a DHS ambassador. I also hope to develop a small roadmap of archives and resources that may be useful to those in the UK who are just beginning to study design history.