Routes to Design History: Episode 15 - Johanna Agerman Ross

DHS Podcasts

14 September, 2026

In the next episode of our podcast series: Routes to Design History, we speak with Johanna Agerman Ross, a curator and writer based in the United Kingdom, originally from Sweden. Since 2023, she has served as the Conran Foundation Chief Curator at the Design Museum, where she is part of the senior leadership team and oversees the Curatorial and Collection departments. In this role, she is also leading the development phase of the museum’s new collection gallery, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Prior to this, she was Curator of 20th-century and contemporary product and furniture design at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she co-curated the Design 1900–Now Gallery and helped establish the initiative Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures. In 2011, she founded the design journal Disegno, where she continues to serve as Director. She received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts London in 2025, her alma mater, and holds an MA in History of Design from the Royal College of Art.

Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/

Developed by our Teaching and Learning Officer Deepika Srivastava, our Student Officer Alex Todd, and former Ambassadors Dan Mu and Pippy Stephenson, the Routes to Design History podcast series explores diverse ways of practising the field. Join us as we uncover the many routes to shaping a career in design history.