V&A / RCA History of Design Postgraduate Programme Editorial 5
Statement by Joint 6 Heads of Programme Editorial
First Year MA 9 Students' Report
Second Year MA 11 Students' Report
MA Programme 13
MA Student Essays 14
MA Dissertation 26 Research Supported by Travel Awards
MA Study Trips 32
Research Students 35 MPhil and PhD
MPhil Students 36
PhD Students 45
Current Students’ 53 and Alumni News
Staff Research 61 Profiles
Degree Recipients 74 2013
Awards, Prizes, 76 Scholarships and Benefactors
Credits 78 Statement by Joint Heads of Programme Statement by Joint Heads of Programme
This academic year has been one of provided by the Programme, this year has seen the establishment the construction of Elizabethan dress. considerable growth for the V&A/RCA including some new taught courses of a new series of academic With their rich and varied scholarly History of Design Postgraduate and research workshops, such as partnerships and research collabora- toolkit, our students have addressed Programme, which has just celebrated Technological Cultures, exploring tions, including the Max Planck areas of fast change and contemporary its thirtieth anniversary. At the start technology in a global context Institute for the History of Science concern globally — the Indian new city of the academic year, we welcomed (run by Dr Simona Valeriani), and in Berlin, with which the Programme of Navi Mumbai; design, tourism and the largest cohort of first year stu- Contemporary Design History has set up a joint post-doctoral identity in Malaysia today; the rebuild- dents to date. This year, we have also (run by Dr Sarah Teasley, in collabo- fellowship, with the first fellow joining ing of ancestral halls in China, just to launched the new framework for the ration with Chiharu Watabe, Associate us in autumn 2014. We congratulate mention a few. This process has taken three strands of the MA Programme Professor of Graphic Design at Tokyo Dr Angela McShane, along with the students on research trips across — ‘Modern and Contemporary’, Zokei University, Japan and visiting partners Professor Phil Withington three continents, working from ‘Renaissance and Early Modern’ and RCA Fellow). The students on the and Mike Pidd of HRI Digital original sources written in a variety ‘Asian, Early Modern to Contemporary’. Asian specialism have also benefitted Humanities at the University of of languages and scripts, including Students entering for 2013/4 will join from the presence this year of Sheffield, for securing a joint ESRC Mandarin, Japanese and Renaissance these newly revised groupings, with Dr Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan and AHRC grant for a three-year data- French, and grappling with cross- an accompanying new range of (Ambedkar University, New Delhi) base project, Intoxication in Early disciplinary investigation in fields as specialist courses. who joined us for a year in spring Modernity 1550–1750. We are also diverse as medical history, engineering 2013 as RCA Leverhulme Fellow. pleased to announce that Dr Sarah and pedagogical theory. Their MA Our Research Programme is flourish- Cheang is the recipient of an AHRC dissertations demonstrated a range ing too, now including a sizeable A sustained encounter with practice Network grant for a research project of subjects which extended across community of students and recent was provided through a collaboration entitled Fashion and Translation: time and space, exploring questions graduates whose MPhil and PhD with the RCA Interior Design Britain, Japan, China, Korea, for of materials and manufacture, process research — ranging from the Programme, and by the RCA Foundry which she is Principal Investigator and training, and ideas of agency Renaissance to the present day project. The week-long study trips with Dr Elizabeth Kramer from and embodiment, engaging with the and with a global scope — constantly to Istanbul and Berlin offered rich and the University of Northumbria ‘spatial turn’ in imaginative ways and challenges and expands the para- diverse encounters with designers, as Co-Investigator. emerging at the end of the second meters of the field. We support historians and curators in the inter- year with a tangible, substantive a number of externally funded national field. We also continue The diverse and ambitious research and lasting contribution to design AHRC PhD studentships, including to provide opportunities for students interests of this year’s graduating historical study and to historical Collaborative Doctoral Awards. to engage with their peers in other students have made an important scholarship more broadly. We celebrate In 2013/2014 this will be enhanced postgraduate programmes, this year contribution to an understanding their achievements, and will learn by the addition of a studentship running joint workshops with the of history that gives full meaning much from the new dimensions they through the new AHRC Collaborative Bard Graduate Center in New York, the to the unexpected — from the revival have brought to the field. Doctoral Partnership Scheme, University of Brighton Design History of the American diner, to the dress administered by the V&A. Programme, and the Birkbeck College culture of Teddy Girls, to architectural The partnership between our two Renaissance MA, amongst others. models in the 1970s, British work wear, world-class centres of scholarship and During 2012/2013, our MA students Victorian cremation, the eighteenth- creative excellence is at the heart of have enjoyed the many opportunities In addition to the long-standing century fire insurance industry, the wellbeing of the Programme as it for cross-fertilization and exchange exchange programme with the Bard, horn in early modern England, and allows us to benefit from the constant
6 7 Statement by Joint Heads of Programme Student Editorial engagement with diverse and dynamic at its heart we will always place First Year MA research approaches embedded scholarly excellence, rigour, Students' Report within academic, curatorial and design independent thought and inspiration. practices. At the V&A, students have The academic year for 2013/2014 In 2012 the History of Design MA benefitted this year from taking part promises much. The ambitious scope welcomed the largest cohort of first year students in its history. in a number of major V&A projects, of current staff research activities From a wide range of backgrounds including the Europe 1600–1800 (detailed in these pages) will bring including History, Jewellery Galleries, due to open in 2014, the new new elements to our teaching. We are Design, Economics and Arts Man- agement, the class undoubtedly Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and also pleased to welcome Dr Livia brought new challenges to the Conservation of Textiles, and the V&A Lazzaro-Rezende, who joins us from course. However, this diversity at Dundee project. We would like to the Escola Superior de Desenho (ESDI) has fostered an energetic dynamic and an eclectic range of research thank V&A curators and RCA colleagues (the Industrial Design School of the Rio interests. From biomimicry for their continuing support and de Janeiro State University) as a new to early modern death jewellery; generosity towards our students. RCA tutor and Spike Sweeting, who 1950's court presentation dress and Iranian bank notes, the joins us from the University of Warwick students’ research has spanned We owe a great deal of our success as a new V&A tutor. At the RCA, and vast chronologies and geogra- The first year has presented Furthermore, they have to our supporters and benefactors: the in partnership with V&A colleagues, phies in attempts to understand students with new sources, demonstrated the potential AHRC; the Basil Taylor Memorial Prize; we look forward to hosting the 40th the role of design in creating methodologies, and theoretical of objects to reveal alternative culture. Whilst this short article frameworks which have narratives. Looking at the the Clive Wainwright Memorial Prize; anniversary conference of the Art can provide only a snap shot of a challenged and broadened homespun cloth of Gandhi the American Friends of the V&A Historians Association (in April 2014). demanding first year, it captures the research practices of all. (khadi) which symbolised Indian Scholarship; the Friends of the V&A the shared experience of our Modernists had a set of tools for nationalism, Swati Venkat introduction to History of Design, decoding the present and near- considered khadi not from Scholarship; the Anthony Gardner In conclusion, we would like to thank as well as the variety of research past, Asianists and Renaissance the point of view of the cloth Fund; the Gillian Naylor Essay Prize in all members of the Programme team projects it has inspired. students had lenses to see the or its propaganda, but from Memory of Tom Naylor; the Montjoie for their enthusiasm and continued far past, and the far distant. the perspective of the spinning Giving the object primacy has wheel, and the technological Fund; the Oliver Ford Trust Scholarship; dedication, as well as the numerous created entirely new perspectives changes it underwent. Similarly the Pasold Foundation; the Sylvia visiting tutors who have contributed and led us to archives and in her research on electronic Lennie England Fund. This year, we to the Programme this year. sources we might never have tagging, Charlotte Flint privileged were able to set up four new awards previously considered. Students the design of the objects them- have been found learning first selves and thus shed new light for 2013–2014, the V&A Global Fashion We hope you enjoy reading more hand about production processes on their social agency. In both History Scholarship, the V&A Fashion of what we have been up to over in the RCA Foundry, handling scenarios the spinning wheel and History Scholarship, the Asian, Early the last year in this bulletin. rarely displayed medical security device told a different instruments at the Royal College story to those offered by Modern to Contemporary Award of Obstetricians and Gynaeco- established textual sources. (supported by the Anthony Gardner logists, and exploring the Fund) and the Renaissance and Early traditional art of Japanese The course’s location within Dr Marta Ajmar wagashi confectionary through one of the world’s largest Modern Award. Head of History of Design packaging designs and company museums has meant that a focus and Acting Head of Research, V&A records. Whilst seemingly on objects has also taken on As we write, we are looking at ways unconnected, these experiences a very practical dimension. Professor Jane Pavitt have inspired a new under- Through handling sessions to continue to innovate the History Head of History of Design standing of what a historical facilitated by the V&A’s curators, of Design Programme, conscious that and Dean of the School of Humanities, RCA source can be. many students have been able
8 9 Student Editorial Student Editorial
to engage first hand with the significance of the sensory research, the second year looks Producing a 30,000 word Our dissertations have not subjects of their study, finding dimension of smell during to be as busy and as fruitful dissertation does not mean been the sole focus of our lives that this opportunity to ask the Renaissance. as the first. simply spending a year living this year, even if at times it may questions with their hands in the British Library; many have felt that way. We have would often lead them down The introduction to unfamiliar By Dorothy Armstrong, of us also utilised the Wellcome, engaged in projects outside of previously unconsidered avenues practices, approaches and Georgia Cherry and Hannah Lee Warburg, SOAS and National the bounds of the course of research. For some students concepts during the first year on behalf of the first year students Art Libraries amongst others. curriculum, curating exhibitions, however, this haptic dimension of the course applied across We pored over primary sources writing articles and presenting to our practice provoked all strands. The challenging ranging from sixteenth-century conference papers. Many of us questions of how the senses emphasis on theory saw stu- manuscripts to twentieth- have also undertaken internships can be explored and utilized to dents discussing Heidegger’s century magazines in a variety at museums around the world, present a richer understanding analysis of the ‘thing’, Bhabha’s Second Year MA of archives in this country some of which are highlighted of the historical landscape of notion of the Third Space Students' Report and around the world, from elsewhere in this bulletin. the past. This was a theme which and Gell’s ideas of Agency as local repositories to national emerged strongly within they addressed different Having handed in our theory collections. The interdiscipli- One particular project which has the work of the Renaissance thinkers each week in the Key Overall our introduction to papers last summer, our cohort, narity of design history and preoccupied several members of strand, aided by a class taught Concepts seminars. Engaging History of Design has involved the newly anointed second the novel range of sources our year group is Unmaking Things by Dr François Quiviger, from with anthropologists, semi- a steep, but rewarding learning years, faced the daunting task whose use it encourages, if not (unmakingthings.rca.ac.uk/2013), the Warburg Institute, on images oticians, political thinkers and curve. Initially challenging of selecting the topics which we demands, in the elucidation an online space dedicated to and ideas in Renaissance design historians, stimulated students with unfamiliar meth- were to spend the entirety of of unusual subjects means the discussion of design history material culture. Following interdisciplinary insights, thodologies, subjects, sources the subsequent year researching stepping outside of the archive and material culture. Established her second term essay on and a number of students are and archives, the application for our dissertations. The decision and finding other sources by the previous cohort of second pomanders and their materiality, now posed to explore some and appreciation of these process was not easy; many and methodologies. We thus year students, the site was re- Luisa Coscarelli’s dissertation of these ideas further over the practices have led students of us looked to objects, themes, handled objects in museums, launched in the autumn of 2012 will focus further on the social next year. to carve new inroads in the field, theories and readings which watched films, conducted oral under the editorship of Sadie and advance their engagement we had encountered during our history interviews, talked Hough and Rebecca Unsworth, in inter- and cross-disciplinary first year on the course for to practitioners, attended and has enabled us to disseminate dialogues. The class of 2012 inspiration, while others sought conferences and examined our research and network with thus promises a broad range out the entirely new. However, hundreds of prints, photographs others who share our interests in of exciting new research after letting our imaginations and paintings. design history. Over the past year, topics in the year ahead. Whilst loose on the past, we emerged some of these ventures will with a series of exciting and take students further afield as novel research proposals. Frankie Kubicki and Lani McGuinness travel to New York These encompassed a range of and North Korea, other stu- different geographies and time dents will focus their attention periods, from early modern closer to home. The Unmaking England to twenty-first-century Things website will face its China. We examined architecture, annual makeover with a host printed materials, fashion, medical of new columns, and we look history, technology, branding, forward to student led events production processes, consumer including Talking Presently, culture, urban spaces, education, a symposium on contemporary national identity, and death, history in December, and to name just a few. Often our the first Post-Graduate Forum projects intersected several for Design History in the summer of these themes, so that we found term. With these exciting pros- clear links developing between pects on the horizon, running dissertations on supposedly very in parallel with dissertation different topics.
10 11 Student Editorial
Unmaking Things has reached a growing and international audience, become a much read and widely respected site, and MA Programme featured articles from both students on the V&A/RCA History of Design Programme and external contributors.
After submitting our completed dissertations and passing our vivas, we ended the year with our show, symposium and publication. Each of these proved in their own unique way to be a chance to reflect on our shared identity as a year group, reminisce about our two years on the course, and celebrate our achievements as fledgling historians of design. The symposium highlighted the links which could be found between our work, as we each presented an aspect of Above: Convocation 2013 — Graduating our research to a lively and students and tutors on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall, photograph encouraging audience in the by Emily Dunn 2013, © Emily Dunn, V&A’s Lydia and Manfred Gorvy all rights reserved. Lecture Theatre, grouped around the themes of ‘Space’, ‘Trace’, Page 9, top: MA students participating in an object handling session facilitated ‘Body’, ‘Identity’ and ‘Materials’. by V&A curators, photograph by Marta For the RCA graduation show, Ajmar, © Marta Ajmar, all rights reserved. we created a series of short Page 9, left: Evening Dress, London, films on each of our projects, late 1950s, Victor Stiebel (1907–1976), which formed a diverse and T.172-1969, © Victoria and Albert fascinating whole. Museum, London.
Page 10, top: First year students Now we have graduated, leaving participating in a short course the confines of the course com- at the RCA Foundry, photograph by mon room in the V&A for futures Elizabeth Coulson, February 2013, © Elizabeth Coulson, all rights reserved. in a variety of different fields. But we can all look back on Page 10, left: Pomander, Italy, the past two years as having ca 1350, partially gilded silver & niello, M.205:1 to 3-1925, © Victoria and Albert been challenging, stimulating, Museum, London. exciting, highly enjoyable and unforgettable. Page 11: The Second Year Symposium: Space, Trace, Body, Identity and Materials, June 2013, photograph by By Rebecca Unsworth on behalf Annie Thwaite, 2013, © Annie Thwaite, of the second year students all rights reserved.
12 MA Student Essays Renaissance and Early Modern Specialism
The Experience of Nostalgia and Novelty
Hollie Chung
The pilgrim bottle consists of ‘a compressed moon-shaped body’ or ‘lentoid’ form, often without a base, a tapered neck and sometimes 1. 1 Robert Finlay, The Pilgrim Art: Cul- ‘two handles’. The name is a ‘purely conventional designation tures of Porcelain in World History given in Near Eastern archaeology’ to wares in this form excavated (Berkeley: University of California from as early as the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age.2 Despite this Press, 2010), p. 229; J. L. Benson, ‘A Pil- grim Flask of Cosmopolitan Style in ancient categorization, the pilgrim flask can be traced to the dining the Cesnola Collection’, Metropolitan tables of High Renaissance courts renewed with aesthetic appeal Museum Journal, Vol. 18, (1983), 5–16 and elevated status. Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of this (p. 5); Dora Thornton, Italian Renais- sance Ceramics: A Catalogue of the particular ware’s design brings to the fore issues of geographical British Museum Collection (London: disseminations, nostalgia, and the complex matters of a burgeoning British Museum Press, 2009), p. 137. Renaissance market. 2. Benson, 1983, p. 5. The design inheritance of the pilgrim flask is divided neatly into 3. three categories: the Christian ampulla, the saddle flask, and William Anderson, ‘An Archaeology the Tang tomb relic. Ampullae were ‘early Christian souvenirs’, of Late Antique Pilgrim Flasks’, Ana- tolian Studies, Vol. 54, (2004), 79–93 ‘vessels of terra-cotta, metal, or glass in which the holy oils were 3 (p. 79); Cynthia Hahn, ‘Loca Sancta kept.’ These oils, sometimes holy water, were known as ‘contact’ Souvenirs: Sealing the Pilgrim’s or ‘secondary relics’ given their physical contact with a true relic Experience’ in The Blessing of Pil- 4 grimage, ed. by Robert Ousterhout which, people believed, allowed the transmission of the ‘miraculous’. (Urbana: 1990) pp. 85–96 (p. 85, The small bottle was often hung on a string and suspended around p. 89); http://oce.catholic.com the neck.5 Robert Finlay, in his book The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of [accessed 3 March 2013]. Porcelain in World History suggests that next ‘silk road merchants 4. took pilgrim Flasks [ampullae] to Central Asia where they became Anderson, 2004, p. 89. conflated with leather saddle flasks since the shapes are much 6 5. alike.’ These were made of leather or metal, were considerable Holger A. Klein, ‘Sacred Things and larger and ‘worn on the belt of ancient travellers to provide an Holy Bodes: Collecting Relics from emergency water supply.’ 7 Both inheritances suggest an important Late Antiquity and the Early Renais- sance’ in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, reliance on the wares portability and fitness for travel. Finally, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Eu- it is believed that craftsmen in China ‘simulated the form in the rope, ed. by Martina Bagnoli, Holger. Song period (960–1279) when it then became a prestigious funerary A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann and James Robinson (London: British Museum good’, from which point it was traded back to Europe as an eastern Press, 2011), pp. 55–69 (p. 57). trade ware with a new prestigious status.8 The sheer number 6. of surviving pilgrim bottles, particularly in maiolica, suggests they Finlay, 2010, p. 300. were well received and well employed, but what was it that made this particular vessel a successful and popular market ware? 7. Thornton, 2009, p. 316; Caraboni Throughout its trajectory, the pilgrim bottle experienced a design Pilgrim Bottle, ca.1560–1580, Urbino, Italy, Maiolica, Stefano, Venice and the Islamic 8409&A-1863, © Victoria and Albert Museum. World (New York: Yale University evolution from a globular earthenware vessel to a curved, Press, 2007), p. 343. elongated, ceramic decanter with a low belly and an extended 8. neck. Initially these modifications appear to appeal to an aesthetic Finlay, 2010, p. 300. need, imbuing the form with a more elegant shape suitable
15 MA Student Essays Renaissance and Early Modern Specialism
for display. However these minor alterations constitute formal feasting and the taking of the Eucharist. In this way the appeal innovations that expand upon key features of the flask’s ergonomic of the pilgrim bottle arguably relates to the wider, antique 9. qualities to suit its later use. 17. preoccupation with what Peter Brown calls ‘praesentia — the physical http://collections.vam.ac.uk/ Peter Brown, The Cult of the 17 item/O77752/pilgrim- Saints: Its Rise and Function presence of the holy.’ During this time it is not surprising to find bottle-fontana-workshop/ The pilgrim bottle would come to constitute a key component of in Latin Christianity (London: the residual presence of devotional regalia incorporated into daily [accessed 24 January 2013]; the late-sixteenth-century dinner service.9 Its most probable use SCM Press, 1981), p. 87. life in such a way, since religious devotion still dominated within Dora Thornton, 2009, p. 408. was as a wine container that served the table, and indeed they 18. the fabric of society. These intermingled theatricalities of eating 10. feature prominently in visual depictions of banquets and feasts. Marina Bianchi, ‘Taste for together evoke a recognizable sense of mass and occasion, Roy Strong, Feast: A History Novelty and Novel Tastes, The comparable to shared religious experiences. of Grand Eating (London: Role of Human Agency in Jonathon Cape, 2002): p. 163; Usually the pilgrim bottle is presented on the credenza or dressoir, Consumption’ in The Active Allen Grieco ‘Meals’ in At Home a sideboard that food historian, Allen Grieco, describes as being for Consumer: Novelty and In fact the issue of nostalgia and recognisability constitutes in Renaissance Italy. ed. by the display of ‘prestigious serving platters’ and was where ‘all the Surprise in Consumer Choice, a key aspect of the pilgrim bottle’s product success. Marina Bianchi M Ajmar-Wollheim ed. by Marina Bianchi, and F. Dennis, (London: V&A food was prepared and transferred from the platters arriving from (New York: Routledge, 1998), states that ‘a new good is never completely new’ regarding Publications, 2006), the kitchen to the plates to be served up.’ 10 At this point the pilgrim pp. 64–86 (pp. 67, 75). a key element in product acceptance to be ‘recognisability’. 18 pp. 244–252 (p. 250). bottle had become largely internalized, a domestic ware now 19. A combination of ‘novelty and familiarity’ often creates a winning 19 11. popularized outside of its traditional ‘travelling’ context. Despite Marta Ajmar, ‘Talking Pots: formula for product success. The pilgrim bottle exists within Dora Thornton, 2009, p. 316. this, a great variety of examples still sport rungs, which traditionally Strategies for Producing an arena of complex undulation, between old and new, Christian allowed the suspension of the ware by strong chords that were Novelty and the Consumption and secular, bolstered with a great sense of nostalgia in both 12. of Painted Pottery in Renais- passed through them. As the ware was domesticated what was respects. As a complex vessel, it maintained the ability to subsume George Basalla, sance Italy’ in The Art Market th th The Evolution of Technology the need for this feature? Dora Thornton terms their existence in Italy (15 –17 Centuries), a number of roles while imbuing new practices with the memories (Cambridge: Cambridge a ‘skeuomorphic residue.’ 11 In definition a skeuomorph is ‘an element ed. by M. Fantoni, L.C Matthew, of old traditions. To possess a pilgrim bottle was thus to have University Press, 1988), p. 107. S.F. Matthew’s-Grieco, (Modena: of design or structure that serves little or no purpose in the artefact F.C. Panini, 2003), pp. 55–64 (p. 58). invested in a highly charged ware. 13. fashioned from the new material but was essential to the object Gary Vikan, ‘Early Byzantine made from the original.’ 12 While the pilgrim bottle had evolved, Pilgrimage Devotionalia as the surplus rungs remained presumably because they constituted Evidence of the Appearance of Pilgrimage Shrines’ in Akten des an integral signification of the original design that was deemed XII, InternationalenKongresses crucial to issues of continuity and recognisability in the later fur ChristicheArchaologie, (Bonn, 1991), pp. 377–388 (p. 379) products. In this way much of the pilgrim bottle’s character went unaltered but why were heavily traditional pieces of devotionalia 14. becoming desirable domestic wares? 13 Finlay, 2010, p. 266.
15. For one, dining was becoming a more ‘privatized’ practice with dinner Peter Thornton, The Italian sets dictating ‘circumscribed social space’ and separating diners Renaissance Interior 1400–1600 from their fellows by individual place settings and paraphernalia.14 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), p. 220. This was at odds with contemporary concerns on hospitality and communality within the home. In light of this the presence 16. of the pilgrim flask on the credenza may have served a symbolic Reino Liefkes‘Tableware’ in purpose of evoking nostalgic notions of communality in the face At Home in Renaissance Italy, Ed. by M Ajmar-Wollheim of a newer restricted dining scene. and F. Dennis, (London: V&A Publications, 2006), pp. 253–264 (p. 255). Secondly, the pilgrim bottle, by name and use, is situated concretely within a religious framework. Its presence on the dressoir is thus particularly apt. Traditionally this table was ‘draped with a splendid cloth… laid along its length, specially designed for the purpose.’ 15 This has encouraged an interesting path of research, pioneered and followed notably by French historians who explore the notion of the dressoir as comparable to a church altar.16 Within this discourse important associations are made between highly ritualistic court
16 17 MA Student Essays Asian, Early Modern to Contemporary Specialism
Gandhi’s Khadi: Uncovering a Counter-Narrative
Swati Venkatraman Iyer
M. K. Gandhi’s Khadi Movement was, during the first half of the twentieth century, at the heart of an extensive constructive 1. programme promoted by the Indian National Congress with a view Gandhi’s decision to focus upon textiles, and hand-spinning towards redressing the devastating decline that the Indian in particular, was informed by economy had suffered under British colonial administration. the works of Dadabhai Naoroji Gandhi was convinced that this economic reconstruction could be and Romesh Chunder Dutt who had first brought to light achieved, not through mechanized industry which concentrated the severity of the economic power and wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the drain that had resulted when imported mill-made yarn and majority, but through a form of decentralization that, to his mind, fabric began to displace India’s was best embodied in cottage industry and handicraft. once robust textile industry.
2. Although handloom weaving had continued in the face of com- Gandhi explained that mecha- petition from British and Japanese fabrics, spinning by hand had, nized industry was unsuited by the end of the nineteenth century, nearly died out because to the Indian situation since Indian weavers had begun to use imported mill-spun yarn. mills would deprive thousands of their livelihoods and promote This was the crucial insight that led Gandhi to take up the cause a general state of degradation of the charkha (spinning-wheel).1 If the impoverished masses that was already amply evident in the heavily industrialized of rural India could be induced to take to spinning by hand and nations of the West. Yet, he the rest to wear the ‘Khadi’ fabric so produced, India would achieve would welcome any technology the ideal of self-sufficiency, thus regaining her economic vitality. that could eliminate the worker’s drudgery without displacing This, in Gandhi’s view, would eventually bring freedom from the worker himself. The charkha, the colonial yoke. he found, was the embodiment of such an ideal machine. Reactions to this proposal ranged from bemused incredulity to biting criticism. Gandhi was accused of harbouring hopes of ‘putting back the hand of time’ by pitting the ‘archaic’ charkha against the might of mill machinery. Despite his repeated and numerous clarifications to the contrary, the popular view persisted that he was, in principle, opposed to all machinery, science and technological progress per se, such a notion stemming largely from a simplistic misreading of the Khadi philosophy as ‘charkha Young women weaving short widths of Khadi at the Satyagraha versus mill’. This essay aims to unseat the notion that the Khadi Ashram, Sabarmati. Behind them are visible rows of spinning movement was technologically retrogressive by highlighting wheels of an improved pattern that came to be promoted as the standard model for Khadi work across the subcontinent. a lesser recognized narrative of the innovation and knowledge Undated. Photograph by Pranlal K. Patel. Source: Trivedi, creation that it triggered. Lisa, Clothing Gandhi’s Nation: Homespun and Modern India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), p. 29. The specific technological choices determined in accordance with the Khadi ideology must be viewed not as the result of blind revivalist sentiment but as the outcome, instead, of thoughtful, insightful consideration.2 The adoption of the charkha would entail very little financial outlay since it could be put together from easily
19 MA Student Essays Asian, Early Modern to Contemporary Specialism
available local materials using local skills. As a piece of equipment, spinning preparatory processes, spinning, dyeing and weaving its functioning was based on a set of elementary physical principles as well as identifying and cultivating various kinds of cotton. 3. which could be easily grasped by any user, however limited his 7. Students were also taught to build, maintain and repair the Its economic benefits apart, Khadi Bulletins 1923 [Reprint] the charkha enabled a unique education. The real masterstroke is revealed in the choice of a form (All India Khaddar Information necessary equipment. form of silent and non-violent of industry that was traditionally ‘casteless’ in nature. This was an Bureau, 1923), pp 159–163. mass-protest. In fact, the hand- important consideration in a society where strict caste-hierarchies The Khadi Movement stimulated a general spurt of research, held spindle or ‘takli’ (which 8. cost next to nothing) was even governed every form of social interaction. Thus, spinning could be Vanat Shastra was written innovation and scientific inquiry. A nationwide charkha design better suited to such purposes as adopted by all individuals regardless of age, gender, marital status, by Maganlal Gandhi and competition was first announced in 1929, offering as a prize it enabled mobility and mass- Deshi Rang by P. C. Ray. spinning demonstrations. physical limitations, financial standing or educational background, the enormous sum of Rs. 1,00,000/- to anyone who succeeded in 3 Other notable examples were This also meant that Gandhi not to mention caste. The Takli Teacher by Richard B. devising a spinning implement that could multiply substantially could enlist the participation of Gregg and Maganlal Gandhi; the production capacity of the existing models. That apart, a women who, as a social group, This was all very well in theory, but the task of translating the Khadi Charkha Shastra by Maganlal number of ‘new and improved’ charkha models began appearing had usually remained outside Gandhi; Dhanush Takli the very public sphere of politics. philosophy into actual practice was not as straightforward as by Maurice Frydman under on the market: some with multiple spindles, others operated by merely reviving a dying industry. As it is now widely recognized, the name Bharatananda and means of foot-pedals and yet others, claiming to be ‘automatic’. 4. this called for a radical reworking of existing social roles and Deshi Rangai Wa Chhapai While not all of these represented any substantial technological The Congress sponsored by Bansidhar Jain. Khadi Programme was formally organizational structures. The responsibility of implementing advance in terms of production capacity or ease of application, launched in an organized and steering Khadi work was handed over to a team of dedicated there were instances of simple, but effective alterations made manner with the creation of the All India Congress Khaddar associates of Gandhi’s, foremost amongst whom was his nephew to existing mechanisms that proved fruitful. For instance, Department in 1922. Khaddar Maganlal. Maganlal Gandhi’s scientific spirit and keen technical the Savyasachi Gin-charkha offered an improvement over the Work in India (Bombay: sense proved indispensable to the movement. In its earliest phases, traditional right-handed gin in that it was fitted with handles on All India Congress Khaddar Department, 1922), p 1. he had been responsible for learning and then imparting the both sides, reducing the worker’s fatigue by allowing him to switch knowledge of spinning and weaving to Gandhi himself as well as hands while operating it.7 On the other hand, the Box Charkha 5. the other inmates of the Satyagraha Ashram at Sabarmati which which could be folded up flat into a light, portable case, repre- Published by the All India Khaddar Information had served as the testing grounds for Khadi work before it could be sented a radical departure from traditional upright charkha 4 Bureau based at the Satyagraha implemented nationwide. He undertook experimentation in cotton patterns. Similarly, the Dhanush Takli, devised by Polish engineer Ashram, Sabarmati. cultivation and textile processes while introducing improvements Maurice Frydman, was operated not by a rotating wheel, but by 6. in implements such as the charkha, the carding-bow, the hand- a bow shaped implement. Gandhian philosophy that advo- operated gin as well as the handheld spindle. Under his leadership, cated the unflinching adherence efforts were made to collect and study indigenous cotton varieties, Practical manuals such as Vanat Shastra and Deshi Rang were to truth and the pursuit of it implements, techniques and technical know-how from across the published during this time, covering subjects such as spinning, through non-violent means. 8 In Gandhi’s view, no science subcontinent. This knowledge was tested, validated, collated and weaving and natural dyeing. V. A. Talcherkar produced, in the form worth the name could possibly disseminated for the benefit of hand-spinners. Technical bulletins of the essay ‘The Charkha Yarn, or the Superiority of Handspun Yarn distance itself from the principles of morality. The means as well issued by Maganlal Gandhi contained valuable information about and the Causes Why that Superiority is Everlasting’, a technical as the end had to be pure and the latest improvements in implements, tips for growing cotton exposition on the advantages of hand-processes over mechanized free from moral taint. The pursuit in homes, methods for testing quality and standardizing production, processes. American Richard B. Gregg produced the radical of scientific truth for its own sake, he believed, was meaning- and even suggestions for alternative materials that could be used study Economics of Khaddar and co-authored The Takli Teacher less unless it could be employed to suit with varying cultural and religious sensibilities.5 His research, (an instructional manual for hand-spinning) with Maganlal Gandhi. for the greater good. conducted in accordance with the principles of ‘Satyagraha’, was driven by the practical necessity to devise methods that were Thus, contrary to existing perceptions, the Khadi Movement acted best suited to the skill sets and materials available to ordinary as a stimulus for innovation, invention and knowledge creation. spinners in rural environments.6 Although there is ample evidence of the difficulties of economy and quality that plagued Khadi work throughout, the attempt here As Technical Director of the All India Congress Khaddar Department has been to highlight the fact that the overall outcome was not and later the All India Spinners’ Association, Maganlal Gandhi ran a mere revival of traditional tools and techniques, but a dedicated a technical school to impart training to volunteers who were to effort, however brief, at scientific inquiry representing a valuable disperse to the various provinces to promote and facilitate Khadi addition to humanity’s existing corpus of knowledge. work along scientific and efficient lines. The curriculum was intensive and comprehensive, covering the entire range of pre-
20 21 MA Student Essays Modern and Contemporary Specialism
Going Face to Face: The Making of Goaltender Masks in North American Professional Ice Hockey, 1959–1991
Andrea Tam
This study lies at the interface between design history and sport history, a juncture still recently described as ‘under construction’ 1. and ‘underdeveloped’. 1 My aim here is to contribute to the rising Jilly Traganou, ‘Forward: Design Histories of the Olympic Games’, engagement between these two fields by conducting a diachronic Journal of Design History, 25.3 interpretation of masks used by ice hockey goaltenders. Although (2012), 245–251 (p. 249); Linda J. hockey, as it is more simply called in North America, has been Borish and Murray G. Phillips, ‘Sport History as Modes of played in organised leagues since the 1880s, it was extremely rare Expression: Material Culture and for goaltenders or ‘goalies’ to wear protective face masks until Cultural Spaces in Sport and History’, Rethinking History: The the latter half of the twentieth century. Journal of Theory and Practice, 16.4 (2012), 465–477 (p. 496). Following a historiographical review of these objects, I discuss 2. the main psychological, social, and technological factors that have Carl Becker, ‘Everyman His Own altered the adoption, construction, composition, distribution, Historian’, American Historical perception, and reception of the masks across a three-decade period. Review, 37.2 (1932), 221–236. I subsequently examine the possible applications and limitations of three theoretical frameworks and conclude that the most significant influences on the masks have been gradual and cumulative rather than immediate and concentrated in singular events.
We can find narratives about the ‘evolution’ of goalie masks in a range of sites, including books, biographies, memoirs, journalism, museum and gallery exhibitions, memorabilia, and internet websites. However, the abundance of ‘popular’ interpretations made for, and by, members of the general public is contrasted by the near absence of such input from ‘professional’ scholars. This therefore reinforces the importance of considering voices beyond academia in order to achieve a more comprehensive awareness of how things, such as these masks, have been represented and remembered in society. To reiterate Carl Becker’s insightful observations: everyone historicises, and histories are everywhere.2
Yet amid the diversity of narratives in various formats and media, some common trends have emerged. In many cases, key names Jacques Plante holding an early 'pretzel' style of mask made and milestones are simply listed in quick succession and without of fibreglass, one of the many designs he experimented with over detailed elaboration. Jacques Plante in particular has been my- his career, Winter 1960, Library and Archives Canada / Jacques and Raymonde Plante fonds/PA-195211, © Public Domain, nlc-5777. thologised as a hero for being the first to defiantly and consistently don a moulded fibreglass mask. The masks used by Plante and other goalies have since been featured in children’s books,
23 MA Student Essays Modern and Contemporary Specialism
television commercials, stamps, and beer advertisements — ‘payoff’ in gaining the acceptance of their peers.5 However, often to strengthen sentiments of Canadian national heritage although it helps to remind us that choices are never truly made 6. 3. and collective identity.3 independently, this model cannot account for the other non-binary For example: Mike Leonetti, Mark Granovetter, ‘Threshold and Shayne Letain, The Goalie Models of Collective Behavior’, judgements made about these objects. Mask (Vancouver: Raincoast Grasping a sense of their relative contexts is essential to under- American Journal of Sociology, Books, 2004); ‘Jacques Plante: standing the mechanisms that have pushed and pulled the 83.6 (1978), 1420–1443. Similarly, Mark Granovetter has proposed the sociological notion From The Heritage Minutes Granovetter also further Collection’, Historica-Dominion development of these masks. Due to constant mental pressures, expanded on his theory with of a ‘threshold’ to describe the hypothetical point at which Institute
Turning to some established theoretical paradigms, we can find supplemental ways of considering the causes and dynamics that had an impact on these masks. The concept of ‘externalities’, as discussed by the economist Thomas C. Schelling, may explain why a large number of goaltenders would acknowledge the known dangers yet still continue to play bare-faced: it can be reasoned that they have implicitly calculated and perceived a better ultimate
24 25 MA Dissertation Research Supported by Travel Awards
With the generous Imogen Adams Emily Dunn support of its In 2012 I was the recipient of the The existing pervasive image benefactors and the Bard Exchange, allowing me to of modern cremation practice Programme itself, spend the autumn term living is of an almost disembodied, some funding can be in America. Whilst there, I travel- clinical, mechanised procedure. led from New York to Los Angeles, My thesis argues for a more provided to facilitate from Chicago to Washington, embodied approach. It focuses students’ research researching nostalgic longings on the senses and the materi- beyond London and for the 50's. Driving through ality of the body in exploring America, it would seem the whole a radical design change in dis- often beyond Europe. country has gone ‘Back to the posing of the dead. Funding can also Future’. Listening to the radio, assist with language you hear commercials for ‘retro’ Central to my thesis is the needs as students ice-cream flavours; visiting an cremation technician, a redis- electrical store, you browse the covery of their skill and sensory navigate archives ‘Nostalgia Electrics’ range feat- engagement with the procedure and territories in a uring snow-cone machines; and the body’s evolving materi- variety of dialects and shopping in the supermarket, ality during its metamorphosis you can choose a Retro 7up. from cadaver to cremated scripts. Being able remains. This work positions to research in situ for The diner is no exception to this cremation and the body within a concentrated and retro-fuelled profit generator. a wider sensory landscape and Reinvented in the 1980s, the 50's in relation to developments uninterrupted period diner became a key theme for in religion, the physical sciences, of time affords stu- restaurateurs seeking a competi- understandings of disease and dents the opportunity tive USP (Unique Selling Position). public health, notions of civic The diner came to symbolize and personal cleanliness and to develop their milkshakes, teenagers, and the contemporary sensibilities dissertations more ‘good old days’, portrayed in concerning corporeality. fully and to explore celluloid by Grease and Happy hitherto unavailable Days. It proved insatiable, Crucial to my thesis was customers hunger for the expe- extensive research within the avenues of research. rience from Moscow to Dubai. Cremation Society archives, located in Durham, funding for The 50's themed diner promises which was supported by be- to transport customers to an- nefactors of the course. The other time. Yet, is it really the Society’s campaign was vital to 1950s customers return to, or an the adoption of cremation, and imagined utopia? Myth has my research focused upon scrap- transformed a problematic books and texts produced by Top: Cafe 50’s, Venice, California, photograph by Imogen Adams, history, including racism, sexism its key figures, as well as analysis October 2012, © Imogen Adams, and fear of atomic fallout, of disparate visual sources and all rights reserved. into halcyon days. I reconsider oral history. My work considers Bottom: View of Siemens’ whether this yearning for a how the image of the new cremation apparatus and perfected version of the past, process of cremation was nego- committal arrangements from worryingly deemed authentic, tiated, constructed, managed William Eassie, Cremation of the Dead: Its History and Bearings is healthy. Does nostalgia and manipulated at the point Upon Public Health (London: compel us to be dissatisfied and of its emergence. Smith, Elder and Co., 1875), alienated from the present? plate 1., photograph by Emily Dunn, 2013, courtesy of Wellcome Library, London.
27 MA Dissertation Research Supported by Travel Awards
Top: Celebration in the Ancestral Hall of Liede Village, Guangzhou, photograph 2010 by Li Ziniu, courtesy of The Nanfang Daily. Xin He Abigail Kenyon Priya Khanchandani Middle: China Pictorial, front cover, January 1952, University of Sheffield My dissertation investigates My research focused on the Navi Mumbai is a new city archive, photograph by Abigail the rarely studied material English language edition of the that sits across a narrow creek Kenyon, © China Pictorial. culture of ancestral halls which Chinese propaganda magazine, from Mumbai. Right outside Bottom: Roof of the Raghuleela re-flourished in Post-Mao China. China Pictorial, from 1951 to 1957. the train station in the district Mall, Vashi, Navi Mumbai, photograph by Priya Khanchandani, Based on exploration of the This formative period in the of Vashi is a giant, paved square July 2012 © Priya Khanchandani, design and utilization of two history of modern China often bounded by the Raghuleela, all rights reserved. case studies, it shows how these tends to be overlooked by schol- a shopping mall with a conical, ‘traditional’ forms of ritual ars. The Anthony Gardner Travel glass roof that twists into the architecture, eradicated by the Fund award enabled me to travel sky. The square has barely any atheist state as symbols of to Beijing, China. I undertook hawkers. No food stalls selling ‘feudal and superstition’ since archival research at the National buttered sandwiches. No make- the Communist Party of China Library of China, consulting shift shrines. There is hardly came to power in 1949, have their collection of the original any trash and no open drains. been revived and re-purposed Chinese language version In other words, little of the by the state and the local of China Pictorial (人民画报 paraphernalia of the average communities for different, but Renmin Huabao). This provided Mumbai street. Navi Mumbai’s sometimes conjoined political valuable insights into the origins name drew on the power of and economic agendas, becom- of China Pictorial. the ‘new’ to discard the past ing museums for patriotic and start afresh (‘navi’ being education, tourist attractions The magazine provided an Hindi for ‘new’). and urban landscapes after opportunity for the state to the “Reform and Opening-up” broadcast an ideal vision of the My dissertation looks at how of the 1980s. New China for both a national the city’s urban design and and international audience, and architecture reflect the aspira- This research was made possible also aimed to convert others tions of a nation in the process by the funding I received from to the communist way of life. of radical redefinition between the Anthony Gardner Travel In the 1950s China Pictorial the 1960s and today. I went Fund. My field trip to sites of two promoted an ideal Chinese soci- on three research trips to access new ancestral halls in urban alist modernity, this was based archives at the local authorities and rural areas of Guangdong on ideas of equality, productivity, in Navi Mumbai, interview Province, China, not only pro- and morality. My study interro- planners and architects and to vided material evidence for this gated the ideal vision the state observe the city itself, which dissertation, it also laid out its created of itself, analyzing design, proved to be a very rich source. foundation. It facilitated my photography, and the physical Going there would not have been own investigation of two rarely marks the archives of the mag- possible without the financial studied but representative cases, azine had accumulated over assistance of the Montjoie Fund. including field observation in time. The process of creating depth, the collecting of visual China Pictorial was a way for the and written materials, such as state to define and create a new photographs, city archives, local Chinese socialist modernity. media reports, as well as inter- views with local residents.
29 MA Dissertation Research Supported by Travel Awards
Tomoko Kikawa-Sanchez Kajal Meghani Rebecca Unsworth
My dissertation topic is ‘Lacquer My research examined how My dissertation examined the Dowry Goods of the Edo period in technical education was used as shape and structure of clothing Japan from 1615 to 1868’. My focus a means of modernising craft in the late sixteenth century, is on the material goods elite practises in colonial India from asking why and how such im- women, such as the wives of sho- 1847 to 1947, with particular possible-seeming fashions were gun and feudal lords who were focus on the Thomason College and could have been created. military leaders, brought to their of Engineering, one of the oldest My aim was to rematerialize marriages. These dowry goods institutions in India to formally fashion history, studying clothes were extravagant and typically teach engineering. In addition to as physical, created objects. made of lacquer and gold by this, Thomason College’s history I achieved this by examining maki-e technique, and embel- is entwined with the Indian this first more sculptural age of lished in matching designs with military, in particular the Bengal fashion through a set of themes motifs of family crests and Sappers and Miners. Known more often utilised in the study Japanese court literature scenes, as the engineers of the army, of sculpture than dress; form, or naturalistic themes. They pre- the Bengal Sappers and Miners materials and making. dominantly consisted of women’s were based in Roorkee in the personal items for education, United Provinces of British India One of the inherent problems leisure, and grooming. Possibly from 1853, and played a key role of studying the fashions of the made mainly for display pur- in the development of the in- sixteenth century is the relative poses, extant dowry goods are stitution. Consequently many lack of surviving garments largely in good condition. of the soldiers received training from that period. However, at the institution and during the the funding which I received During my research in Japan, Second World War, the college from the Basil Taylor Memorial made possible by The Anthony was converted into a temporary Prize enabled me to visit the Gardner Travel Fund, I visited military base to train new re- Germanisches Nationalmuseum many museums, historic sites cruits in technical trades such as in Nuremberg, which has one such as castles and temples, blacksmithing and carpentry. of the best collections of extant and libraries. Handling or taking sixteenth- and seventeenth- photographs of extant objects The nature of my dissertation century clothing in Europe. and literature was mostly pro- required me to travel to north Having the opportunity to view hibited, but observing exhibited India to facilitate my research, a large number of garments objects, for example, the most which was generously sup- firsthand proved to be invaluable magnificent dowry goods of ported by the Anthony Gardner research for my dissertation. Chiyo-hime in The Tokugawa Art Travel Fund award and the It allowed me to analyse the Museum, was inspiring for Design History Society. I travelled importance of non-textile forming ideas for the three main to Roorkee, to access archival materials in clothing, the skills Top: Ondaimyo Konreigyoretsu Ezu elements in my work: wedding material on Thomason College possessed by the tailors and (Wedding Procession of Feudal Lord), woodblock print, Japan, c.1736–41, rituals and familial morality, and the Bengal Sappers and other artificers, and the fascinat- National Diet Library, Tokyo, women’s life cycle and accom- Miners held at the Indian ing details of garments made so NDLBibID 023872716 © National Diet plishments, and the skills and Institute of Technology and long ago: the depth of the Library, Tokyo. ingenuity of lacquerers. Amongst the Bengal Engineering Group padding in a peascod doublet, Middle: Bengal Sappers and Miners the places I visited, Zohiko, the Museum respectively. the remnants of an embroidery Workshop, 1853, photograph by Kajal Meghani 2012, courtesy of the long-established lacquerer design on a kirtle, and the holes Bengal Engineering Group, Roorkee, in Kyoto, and POLA Research left by pins in a ruff. © Kajal Meghani, all rights reserved. Institute of Beauty & Culture were Bottom: The impossible and particularly helpful in enriching sculptural dress of the late sixteenth my understanding of Japanese century. Elizabeth I, Nicholas Hilliard, dowry goods. c.1585, pen and ink drawing on vellum, P. 9-1943 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
31 MA Study Trips MA Study Trips
The first year study trips abroad Study Trip to Berlin its present — and perhaps even its future. It would Study Trip to Istanbul provide an opportunity to be fitting then that our encounter with the city In April 2013 the first-year students on the Modern would be capped off with an invitation to meet a In April 2013 the Renaissance and Asian strands experience the culture and design specialism strand departed for Berlin, this year’s pair of recent Royal College of Art graduates, whose visited Istanbul to enrich our knowledge of history of a city at firsthand. chosen destination for the annual study trip newly-established studio (called Bold Futures) seeks Ottoman and Byzantine design. The previous The students are accompanied organised by our course. Although our excursion innovative ways of conceptualising the potential term’s teaching had focused on global influences would only span four days, it made an indelible world to come. on design, so the trip provided an interesting by the course tutors, but local impression on us all — from those who had never opportunity to see these connections first hand. academics and curators often visited the city before to others who were already In all, this study trip was a treasured interlude that Much of the trip was dedicated to exploring lead tours and visits to sites of well acquainted with the German capital. took our learning experience beyond our normal the diverse architecture of Istanbul’s mosques, South Kensington hub, further providing us with the including Hagia Sophia and the so-called Blue historic and cultural significance From the outset, we had the fortune of being greeted chance to socialise and bond with each other while Mosque. Many of these had formerly been not always available to visitors. by faultless weather and guided by our insightful making enriching and enduring memories. Byzantine churches, the architecture of which is These trips are an intense but tutors, Jane Pavitt, Sarah Teasley, and Simona still visible in both their structure and decoration. valuable part of the MA Pro- Valeriani. In combination, this proved invaluable as James Haldane and Andrea Tam The Chora Museum provided the most impressive we traversed the metropolis via the U-Bahn and display of these Byzantine remains, due to the gramme. Berlin and Istanbul S-Bahn as well as on foot along Unter den Linden, survival of some of the world’s finest medieval were the destinations for 2013. around Alexanderplatz, and down Karl-Marx Allee. marbles, frescoes and mosaics. But what made this an outstanding experience was Receiving an overview of Berlin from Dr Roman Hillmann at the additional opportunity to engage with a range the Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt (Senate We also had the opportunity to visit Topkapı Palace, of specialists working locally in Berlin. At Humboldt Department for Urban Development and the Environment), 15 April the primary residence of the Ottoman sultans University, Dr Robin Schuldenfrei introduced us to 2013, photograph by Andrea Tam, © Andrea Tam, all rights reserved. during the early modern period. Here we were able the collaborative research projects being conducted as part of the ‘Image Knowledge Gestaltung’ inter- disciplinary laboratory. Elsewhere, we were privileged to have Prof. Dr Adrian von Buttlar lead us through the wonders of the Neues Museum and Dr Tobias Ruetenik explain the workings and structural features of the Berlin Wall.
One particular highlight was an afternoon at the Interbau complex in the Hansaviertel district in former West Berlin. This housing project — com- missioned in 1957 largely as a piece of propaganda — brought together contributions from leading modernist architects ranging from Oscar Niemeyer to Alvar Aalto. Again, it was our guide (Charis Wegener in this instance) who defined the visit. A lifetime resident of the Interbau, she gave us the unpublished history of the place — including the details of the controversy that led Le Corbusier to disown his architectural contribution.
Despite the relatively brief duration of our stay, it was more than enough to generate a profound sense of the diverse layers and traces of design existent throughout one urban centre. From nineteenth- century neoclassical architecture to contemporary pedestrian signals still blinking with the distinctive Ampelmännchen, our study trip exposed us to various designs not only of Berlin’s past but also of
32 33 MA Study Trips
Research Students MPhil and PhD
to see the exquisite Iznik tiles in the Harem, — stuffed pancakes made by women who sit by the scrolling golden calligraphy of the courtyard the window of the restaurant. We were also lucky entrance and the royal treasures of the sultans. enough to be able to sample some of Turkey’s most traditional food at the Istanbul Culinary One of the most interesting visits of the trip was to Institute. After four greatly varied courses, ice the Basilica Cistern, an impressive sixth-century cream made with fresh rose petals provided the structure 500 feet below ground. The cathedral-size perfect end to the evening. cistern was able to hold 80,000 cubic metres of water. Boats were once used to tour the cistern, but Overall, the trip certainly helped to broaden there are now walkways allowing tourists to view the global perspectives of design history for the entire cistern and its famous Medusa pillars. both cohorts, and was the inspiration for sever- al students' projects long after our return. Another highlight was a boat trip up the Bosphorus, culminating in a visit to the Sadberk Hanim Museum. Sophie Cope and Annie Thwaite The Museum houses an extraordinary private collection of traditional costumes, silver, ceramics and other Turkish artefacts, as well as archaeolo- gical relics dating back to the sixth century BC. Above: A snapshot from a tour of In the evenings we explored the various culinary Istanbul Mosques led by architectural historian Yavuz Sezer, 15 April 2013, delights that Istanbul has to offer. One night photograph by Christine Guth, we experienced the Turkish delicacy of gözleme © Christine Guth, all rights reserved.
34 MPhil Students
Catherine Guiralde Emily M. Orr Pierre Faucheux’s Trenqualye Dressing a New Interior: MPhil ‘Lines of Flight’ Pierre Faucheux’s Lines The Development Students of Flight (1950s–1990s) of Department Store (1950s–1990s) p. 37 Display, 1880–1920 Catherine Guiral de Trenqualye p. 41 Kasia Jezowska Focusing primarily on French graphic design Beyond Design — David Preston of the early 1950s onwards, my research is Polish Industrial Displays Design Co-ordination an historical study interrogating the trans- formation and meaning of graphic design p. 38 and Professionalism in practices in relation to the concepts of the British Graphic Design, out-of-field and deterritorialisation. Xi Jia 1946–1967 What is Chinese The history of French graphic design is often p. 42 one in which lines have been marked off Cultural Identity Today, quite strongly, inscribing it in the linear and and How Can it be Joséphine de Staël the visible. Yet, following Deleuze’s call in Understood Through the Bespoke: The Language Mille Plateaux, there is also the possibility for deterritorialisation, a more intuitive and Construction of Dress? of Luxury nomadic drift. Here, deterritorialisation is p. 39 p. 43 a line of flight from territory to territory. Thus a territory that once appeared geogra- Trond Klevgaard Robert Taylor phically and historically framed can begin to reveal its unseen out-of-field. Mapping Funkis Redefining Folk Typography: A Study and Popular Arts By looking at the largely forgotten figure of French graphic designer Pierre Faucheux of New Typography in Post-War Britain Pierre Faucheux, écartelage, (1924–1999), my research tests the hypothesis that the mutation p. 44 Quatrième portrait harmonique Discourse in Scandina- de Charles Fourier, November 1965, and migrations of postwar French graphic design are drawing lines vian Trade Magazines courtesy of Jérôme Faucheux, of escape from a conventional territory framed by definitions that Paris, 2012. have perhaps limited its horizon. The idea of a pre-determined p. 40 territory with traditional limits however takes into account the fact that its conventionality is the very paradoxical reason for its creativity. Trinita Marr It is this creativity that my research addresses: a creativity whose Unpicking the Threads form might be understood as deterritorialisation, a concept-metaphor of the Needlepoint Kit: drawn from Deleuze. An Investigation of How As Jean-Loup Bourget notes: ‘[…] whenever an art form is highly con- Meaning and Value are ventional, the opportunity for subtle irony or distantiation presents itself all the more readily.’ Ascribed, Transferred and Appropriated During the Life-Cycle of Pre-Formed Craft Objects
37 MPhil Students MPhil Students
Beyond Design — What is Chinese Polish Industrial Cultural Identity Displays Today, and How
Kasia Jezowska Can it be Under- stood Through My research looks at different types of Polish design displays the Construction from the International Exhibition of Dress? of Habitation and Urbanism in Paris in 1946, until the 30th Xi Jia anniversary of the People’s Re- public of Poland organised in 1974. The first category of design The phenomenon of Chinese shows covers Polish participation fashion shadowing the West in international fairs that were is a reflection of the Chinese loss taking place in the Western cities, of their cultural confidence and Polish display at the International their equivalents on the East side of the Iron Curtain and also in the cultural identity after experiencing Fair, Vienna, 1950, © 2012 The process of reconstructing The Archive of Academy of Fine numerous locations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where Poland a paired apron, June–July 2013, much related turmoil since the Manchu invasion in the mid-seven- Arts, Warsaw. (and other People’s Democracies) had a strong presence at that time. photograph by Xi Jia, 2013, teenth century. Meanwhile, a desire to express Chinese cultural The fact that the displays were an important part of inter-ministerial © Xi Jia, all rights reserved. origins by drawing on Chinese motifs and styles can frequently be agendas raises the question about constructing the national identity found among Chinese fashion designers. This approach has sometimes of the country during the Cold War. The second type of exhibitions been criticized as superficial and a form of cultural stereotyping. organised in Poland presented modern design aesthetics to the home audience. More importantly, they worked as vehicles for designers’ Does the focus on ethnicity allow another and much stronger proposals to enhance the quality of living despite the existing housing approach to identity? The idea of ethnicity is very important when policy of the state. entering into the discussion of Chinese cultural identity in this project. This research by practice focuses on the Han ethnic group The third genre of exhibitions was part of bigger celebratory schemes because of its influence historically and contemporaneously. commemorating anniversaries of the communist rule. Cars, machines, furniture and daily objects were presented as achievements of the Creating structure is the ultimate cultural modus operandi suggested socialist economy and the visible signs of progress, on-going modern- by the fashion historian Dirk Lauwaert. My ‘research by practice’ isation processes and the preview of an imminent affluence. These approach in this, its first main stage is to reconstruct a range of his- kinds of exhibitions took place across three decades. Within that torical Chinese garments. This is to understand how Chinese cultural period, significant political changes occurred. The relations between identities manifest through the material itself. I do not try to suggest power and the citizens were being re-negotiated. Diplomatic and what Chinese cultural identity is, but aim to find out material facts economical changes occurred simultaneously. At the same time, the about Chinese identity through dress. professionalisation and redefinition of design disciplines proceeded both in Poland and around Europe. They affected the design culture in Poland and influenced both production and consumption.
Using a chronological perspective I aim to investigate how each category of design exhibitions, outlined above, evolved in terms of their rationale, narrative and visual means, as well as the place of the government and designer, worker and consumer within this discourse.
38 39 MPhil Students MPhil Students
Mapping Funkis Dressing Typography: A Study a New Interior: of New Typography The Development Discourse in of Department Scandinavian Trade Store Display, Magazines 1880–1920
Trond Klevgaard Emily M. Orr
The motivation for undertaking this My research explores the net- project comes from what I see as a work of commercial and artistic lack of literature on Scandinavian professionals who managed the graphic design, especially from the promotion and consumer percep- Postcard featuring Marshall Field period before the Second World War. & Company’s State Street Aisle. tion of goods in department stores in London, New York, and Chicago For those looking for sources in the Printed by V. O. Hammon at the turn of the twentieth century. I aim to reinterpret the history The 1930 Stockholm Exhibition Publishing Company, Chicago, at night, photograph by English language this is especially true, with Scandinavian examples of the department store from the point of view of the shopfitters, being left out altogether of many mainstream graphic design histories. Illinois, ca. 1908, courtesy Illinois display managers, and window dressers who drove a shift in the stores’ Gustav W Cronquist, 1930, Digital Archives. courtesy of Arkitekturmuseet, business priority from inventory size to inventory display and thus Stockholm, © Arkitekturmuseet, However, if we look at design fields other than the (typo)graphic, advanced the profession of visual merchandising. Within each role, all rights reserved. the situation is quite different — here Scandinavian design tends to chronological and cross-Atlantic case studies will investigate when, be well represented. Commentators on such other design fields have how, and why particular design schemes and strategies were favoured asserted the view that the functionalist design movement (in Scan- to produce dramatic visual effects alongside sales in the marketplace. dinavia colloquially known as funkis) had a separate and distinct A final chapter will detect how the department store served as a train- identity compared to its continental European counterparts. ing ground for industrial design.
Conversely, literature on (typo)graphic design describes functionalism While magazines and advertisements have received attention as as something which is either accepted or rejected. Practitioners important mediating factors between production and consumption are described as ‘converting’ to German ideas, rather than developing in this period, I will highlight the complex agenda of display in the their own. It seems odd that (typo)graphic design should not have department store as an active and persuasive mediator. Display staff developed as other design fields did, and one of the aims of the exhibited handcraftsmanship and engaged the aid of technology project will be to challenge this notion to see if a more nuanced in order to choreograph a continual interior transformation that narrative will emerge. conveyed the store’s up-to-date reputation. Using retail trade publica- tions, advice literature, period reviews, patent records, and surviving The project will focus on design trade journals such as those photographs, I will evaluate the on-site production of display and published in Scandinavia during the interwar period, using them as reveal the technical framework, manual labor, and artistic awareness its primary sources. The journals interest me because they are both required to fabricate an impressive interior. This study will offer vehicles for spreading ideas and designed objects in their own right. original readings of department store display as a professional product As such, I anticipate that they will be able to shed light on both my and a platform for a dialogue between commerce, art and industry. areas of interest: the Scandinavian-specific discourse, and the visual nature of the (typo)graphic designs produced.
40 41 MPhil Students MPhil Students
Design Co-ordination Bespoke: and Professionalism in The Language of Luxury
British Graphic Design, Joséphine de Staël 1946–1967
David Preston This thesis will examine the phenomenon of bespoke luxury production in Europe today, with an emphasis on the UK, France and Italy. The industry will be an- Post-war Britain witnessed a dramatic alysed in terms of skill, materials and location. The shift in the development of graphic aim is to uncover the relationships and networks that design as a profession, resulting in define the luxury market today. marked changes to the way that design was commonly conceived. Whilst in Evidence will be drawn from small bespoke producers the inter-war years, graphic designers as well as larger global brands specializing in fashion, (or ‘commercial artists’ to be more shoes, jewellery and fine fragrance. The thesis will accurate) had survived on a series of look at the inter- and intra-generational transfer of Ilford Design Standards Manual, designed by Design one-off commissions, in the period that followed immediately after skill and the changing role that formal and informal Research Unit, ca.1966, the Second World War, there began a slow, but definite transition institutions have played in this process. It will critically photograph by David Preston, towards design programmes created by groups. examine how some firms have relied on historic 2012, courtesy of the V&A's techniques to authenticate their goods while others Archive of Art and Design, catalogue reference: These programmes comprised of multiple design items conceived have embraced new technologies to offer a made-to- AAD/1999/8/170. simultaneously as part of a comprehensive design identity system, measure service. which was described at the time as a ‘house style’. A critical aspect of Collection of lasts at a bespoke these new design programmes was the manner in which multiple shoemaker, photograph by Joséphine Material changes in the last thirty years will be considered with designs were aligned into a single unified style, an activity described de Staël, 2013, © Joséphine de Staël, a focus on the rise of global markets and trade shows. The thesis will by the designer, FHK Henrion, as ‘design coordination’ (1967). Whilst all rights reserved. investigate the use of vintage and rare materials as well as the as- design coordination can be seen to represent an attempt to control similation of ‘ethnic’ materials. The development of new materials is and order a series of design artefacts (a visual identity system), also an important part of this research. The work will look at the rise it must also be understood as an attempt to align the design work- of ‘immaterial luxury’ in relation to the making of a bespoke item as force and to control the process of design. In this respect, it involves a luxury experience. both the physical act of designing and the administrative direction of such work. Location will form the final part of the investigation into production. The thesis will examine the pattern by which companies have This project explores the emergence of design coordination as a expanded their operations abroad and the consequences of this for powerful tool of technical rationality. It examines how the deployment design and production. It will also investigate workshop organization of such methods influenced the development of graphic design and seek to understand the changing role of the workshop from a professionalism in post-war Britain. I argue that the adoption of point of real to digital contact between clients and craftsmen. a systematic design approach (as distinct from an artefact approach), unintentionally quashed the social imperatives of graphic designers. This led in turn, I will suggest, to a flattening out of visual culture (both concepts and aesthetics), and to a new design tradition where the value of convincing presentation came to transcend the impor- tance of credible, unfeigned content.
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Redefining ‘Folk’ Rebecca Bell Michelle Jones Material Margins: The Incorporated Society and ‘Popular Arts’ PhD Glass in Czech Art 1930s of London Fashion Students in Post-War Britain to Present Day Designers: English Robert Taylor — Internationalism Couture, 1936–1953 and the Role of Craft p. 48 Folk art is a contested term — avoided by academics and curators. The practice, Mary Ann Bolger Hui-Ying Kerr study and collecting of folk art in Celtic Modernism: The Bubble Dreams Britain has been neglected or marginal- ised. Though recently popularised by Negotiation of National and Bubble Living: artists (such as Jeremy Deller, Alan Identity, Tradition and Consumer Design Kane, Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry) Modernity in Post-War in the Japanese folk is still misunderstood and derided in the History of Design, as socially and Irish Graphic Design Economic Bubble, Royal Family Waxworks Display, courtesy of The Louis Tussauds aesthetically conservative or irrelevant. After successive nostalgic 1986–1991 House of Wax, Great Yarmouth revivals from the late nineteenth century onwards, a high point was Emily Candela p. 49 Norfolk, photograph by Robert reached in thinking about the relationship between folk art and mass Taylor 2012, © Robert Taylor, Materialising the Atomic: all rights reserved. popular culture in mid-twentieth-century Britain. The post-war folk revival witnessed an increased interest in publishing, and exhibiting Iconography at the Alice Twemlow of folk and popular arts; Noel Carrington, Enid Marx and Margaret Interface of X-ray Reflecting Culture and Lambert all explored objects and traditions disregarded but relevant to local communities and representative of wider cultural movements. Crystallography and Commerce: The Politics Design in Post-War Britain of Design Criticism For The Unsophisticated Arts (1951) Barbara Jones imaginatively de- p. 46 Since the 1950s scribed a range of practices including fairground carousals, taxidermy p. 50 and waxwork museums. Jones highlights an aesthetic and attitude shared by works crafted in rural traditions to those produced through Helen Evenden popular culture. Craft, Styling, Design: Helen Margaret Walter the Evolving Discipline Actor-Managers, The present project contends that folk and popular art are both potentially useful terms for understanding British material culture of Car Design Dress and Character and its reception. Application of social and cultural history will con- in Great Britain in Late Nineteenth- textualise the post-war folk revival’s objects and representations, and Century London realign folk art as popular, democratic and relevant. Jessica Jenkins p. 51 Visual Arts in the Urban Environment in the Anna Wu German Democratic Chinese Painted Republic: Formal, Theo- Wallpaper: Investigating retical and Functional the Life Cycle of change, 1949–1989 a Global Aesthetic p. 47 p. 52
44 PhD Students PhD Students
Materialising the Visual Arts in the Atomic: Iconography Urban Environment at the Interface of in the German X-ray Crystallography Democratic Republic: and Design in Post- Formal, Theoretical War Britain and Functional
Emily Candela Change, 1949–1989
Jessica Jenkins This multidisciplinary research, under- taken through an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award between the Royal My research examines the functions College of Art and the Science Museum, of the visual arts (works of art, design explores the interface of science and and decorative art) in public space design in post-war Britain. I am navi- over the four decades of the German X-ray Crystallographer ‘From Pre School Education’, Glass Kathleen Lonsdale’s model gating this interface by way of a shifting iconography associated with mosaic on the gable of a modern Democratic Republic, and examines the varying assignations of of the structure of ice, c.1955, the atomic that evolved between design and scientific developments kindergarten building, by Otto socialist value, or difference. Through an analysis of the cultural politics © Science Museum, London. during the ‘Atomic Age’. This era was marked not only by nuclear Schutzmeister, 1967, Schwedt. and theoretical debates, as well as interventions made by groups Photograph Jessica Jenkins, 2012, science, which birthed the ‘atomic’ of bomb and energy, but by another © Jessica Jenkins, all rights reserved. of artists, architects, designers and critics, the thesis rejects a deter- kind of ‘atomic’ as well: that of the underlying atomic structures of ministic model of artistic production in the GDR, and examines matter. I focus on the iconography associated with this area of scien- the way in which change came about through multiple influences. tific investigation, exploring the relationships between its life in the Within the limits of the cultural political framework, conditions laboratory, on television, in designed objects of popular culture and emerged within which creative theorists and practitioners were able in the cultural imagination. themselves to define and develop both formal and functional change within the visual arts in public space. This iconography had its origins in the very visual science of X-ray crystallography, which investigates the arrangements of atoms in the Through the case studies examined, the thesis also considers the molecules that make up materials from blood to nylon. Crystallogra- material qualities of particular art works and ensembles, thus offering phers created an abstract iconography for thinking and communicating specific and detailed new research on the formal developments about this sub-microscopic phenomena, which developed largely of works of art and design within architecture and urban ensembles. through the scientists’ construction of three-dimensional models, Through oral history interviews with artists, architects and designers such as ‘ball-and-stick’ forms. These are echoed in many designed of the former GDR, my research brings to attention the intentions artefacts of popular culture at this time, from magazine racks to the and realisations of artists and collectives which otherwise are at risk imagined forms gracing the pages of science fiction comics. In ex- of historical obscurity. These analyses demonstrate the ways in which ploring how the atomic was ‘materialised’ across cultural realms, this the specific production of officially commissioned and politically project illuminates the ways in which beliefs and metaphors regarding sanctioned architectural art rather than, as is often assumed, allowing the essence of living things, the physical world and science itself for little innovation, actually was at the forefront of the expansion were mediated at the interface of science and design. of the conception of Socialist Realism.
46 47 PhD Students PhD Students
English Fashion Bubble Dreams and Bubble and The Incorporated Living: Consumer Design Society of London Fashion in the Japanese Economic Designers (1936–1953) Bubble, 1986–1991
Michelle Jones Hui-Ying Kerr
The focus of my study is the construction This research project explores the nature and and maintenance of the Incorporated Society design of consumer products in Japan during of London Fashion Designers and the role it the height of its Economic Bubble between the played in London’s recognition as an interna- years 1986–1991, in which Japan experienced tional fashion centre. This couture trade unprecedented rises in the asset price of real group, self-appointed and regulated by its estate, as well as stocks and shares, fuelling not designer-members, was established in January only a property boom, but also one in consumer 1942, and remained in operation for thirty lifestyles. In particular it focuses on consumer years. The Society’s original objectives were products designed in Japan and aimed at young broader than merely the commercial concerns working men and women. This research will of its members’ businesses. It aimed to de- draw from a range of research materials that velop the reputation of London as a creative includes the design of specific products, their fashion centre and collaborate with British representation and dissemination through industry to ‘increase the prestige’ of London advertising and magazines, and will be fashion in foreign markets. The Incorporated supplemented by the views of subjects inter- Society, as a component of the British export viewed about their experiences of the period, agenda, was therefore constructed to act as government statistics and white papers. a body of official tastemakers for the British In doing so it aims to address the links between fashion and textiles industry. Previous studies postmodernism, bubble economy, and design into official design bodies have primarily and material culture, furthering the ideas of Advertisement for Toshiba ‘Off’ focused on proselytizers for ‘good design,’ Series Air Conditioner/Heater 1989, Fredric Jameson about how late-capitalist economies create the which adhered to the tenets of Modernism. as featured in Hanako No. 45, 1989, conditions of postmodernity. This is seen to be expressed through Skirt Suit, No. 20 Original photograph by Hui-Ying Kerr, 2012, C92/10, London, 1942, In comparison fashion has often been left out of such an agenda, prevalent themes in the Bubble, such as nostalgia, travel, internation- courtesy of Toshiba Corporation, Incorporated Society probably because its gendered, supposedly irrational search for alisation, spectacle, lifestyle, and euphoria, which are used as a © Hui-Ying Kerr, all rights reserved. of London Fashion Designers, novelty, rendered it seemingly incompatible to such ideals. framework for exploring and analysing the different design products T.48&A-1942, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. of the Bubble period. Through this it demonstrates how the conditions As a consequence, not only this group of designers, but also fashion of a bubble economy can affect and potentially intensify not only itself, remains firmly open to the design historical agenda. The focus the conditions for postmodernism, but also the values of material on this specific trade group allows a study that moves away from the culture, through which the aesthetic and ideological values of post- devalued method of viewing fashion designers as autonomous artists modernity and rapidly increasing economic prosperity are experienced or authors, to one that considers the ways design practice can by subjects within a bubble economy. operate within a collaborative group structure. For the design historian the Incorporated Society offers an exceptional case study of designers working in association throughout a period of political, cultural, and social upheaval.
48 49 PhD Students PhD Students
The Changing Actor-Managers, Relationship Dress and Character of Design Criticism in Late Nineteenth- to its Publics in Century London
the UK and the US Helen Margaret Walter Since the 1950s My research is based around the figure of the Alice Twemlow actor-manager in late nineteenth-century London. Including such men as Henry Irving, Herbert Design criticism has been used Beerbohm Tree, and George Alexander, this group in turn (and sometimes simul- of individuals were not only leading actors of taneously) to validate, interpret, the day but also directors, designers, and commis- and castigate the design industry sioners of plays and, ultimately, successful social and to gather, educate, protect, figures in their own right. However, achieving these and admonish the publics who successes, both within and outside the theatrical Eliot Noyes and members of The Moving Company in heated encounter designed products. This research examines five moments context, relied on their success in creating and discussion at the International of transition in the latter half of the twentieth century in the US communicating character to their audiences and Design Conference at Aspen, 1970. and the UK when design critics were most self-aware of their practice critics, a process in which dress played a large Still from IDCA 70 by Eli Noyes and and sought to redirect the purpose, techniques, and the intellectual, and hitherto unexamined part. Claudia Weill, courtesy of Eli Noyes. stylistic and material constitution of design criticism. Encompassing different critical formats ranging from the magazine article and My investigation consists of three parts, the first the blog post to the conference, exhibition, and the designed object of which is a detailed examination of the role of itself, the research explores the shifting relationships between the costume in the creation and interpretation of thea- ways design criticism was produced and disseminated and the ways trical characters. This includes not only a discussion its publics engaged with it. In the case of the student protests at of the creation of characters’ identities through dress the International Design Conference at Aspen of 1970, for example, but also an analysis of how the audience’s and the critique, which was directed at the scripted and linear modes critics’ experience of particular roles, and subse- of presentation that had dominated conference proceedings until quently their response to the actor’s skill, was framed then, took the form of theatrical performances and happenings by the actor’s costumes. I go on in the second part which, through their spontaneous and participatory physical forms, to consider how such ideas about the creation and helped underline the content of their messages. Using an expanded communication of character might have extended definition of the material constitution of criticism is important beyond the theatrical context, into the offstage John Bernard Partridge, Sketch in helping to extend the discussion beyond the binary comparison of Henry Irving as Iago in Othello, image of the actor-manager, and whether everyday dress might have between academic and journalistic criticism, and to get past a wistful c.1880, pencil, pen and ink on been a means of communicating his new status as artist and pro- yearning for the superior ideal of literary, leftist, ideologically driven paper, S.5484-2009, © Victoria fessional. Finally, I explore the role of fashionable menswear on the criticism in a written form. This ideal should be recognized for its and Albert Museum, London. stage at the very end of the nineteenth century, with the advent significance in the context of the late twentieth-century publishing of drawing-room dramas, based on contemporary fashionable life paradigm, but not used to forestall the evolution of design criticism and hugely popular on the London stage. in all the unexpected and unfamiliar forms it may inhabit, the voices and concerns it may engage with, and the publics it may speak for.
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Chinese Wallpaper: Investigating a Global Current Students' Aesthetic and Alumni News Anna Wu
Chinese wallpapers were first introduced to Europe in the late 17th century and went on to play a central role in Chinoiserie; an aesthetic which gave popular definition and material ex- pression to European interactions with Asia in the early modern period. Since then they have remained a longstanding feature of the European material landscape, but recent decades have witnessed a particularly strong renewed interest in Chinese wallpaper. This has resulted not only in a growing number of conservation projects involving historic papers but the emergence of artists and design companies who are re-interpreting and reproducing historic Chinese wallpapers for a contemporary market. Consequently Chinese wallpapers are once again circulating throughout the world as a valuable luxury commodity and are notably finding a market in China for the first time. Wallpaper detail, Chinese (probably Guangzhou), c.1725- c.1750, Nevertheless, since their first introduction to Europe, Chinese E.2087A-1914, © Victoria and Albert wallpapers have become almost uniquely associated with European Museum, London. interiors and decorative styles and somewhat dissociated from the country of their origin. Many scholars have argued that painted Chinese wallpapers were an export commodity created for and used exclusively in the West. However, they retained and continued to utilise a visual language that was strongly rooted in Chinese artistic traditions and contained a number of design elements which would have had particular symbolic meaning, immediately recognis- able to those with an intimate knowledge of Chinese art and culture. Although current research suggests that Chinese wallpapers of the type used in Europe were never used in China, their actual relationship with Chinese material culture and social practices has been given little further consideration.
I intend to re-evaluate current knowledge of Chinese wallpapers; investigating their development and manufacture in China as well as the motivations and trade mechanisms which led to their distribution throughout the world. Central to this investigation will be an attempt to reconnect Chinese wallpapers with Chinese material culture and specifically address the Chinese social, cultural and material contexts that informed, influenced and facilitated their design and production. By deconstructing and analysing the multiple influences exerted upon Chinese wallpaper throughout its developmental trajectory I hope to gain insight into the complex systems of global cultural interaction and trade which contributed to their development and underpin their continued relevance in the global material landscape today.
52 Current Students' and Alumni News Current Students' and Alumni News
Students on the MA of private devotion in early and interning at Crab Tree Farm. forming the social relations Programme are modern Italy. In November 2012 As well as being his family home, of communism. However, the I was invited to present part of the farm hosts the extensive Prague Spring in 1968 and expected, and actively my research on the revolutionary private collection of Mr John increasingly conservative policies encouraged, to take impact of paper as a material H. Bryan. From the Arts and Crafts under Brezhnev meant that part in current in Renaissance culture at Movement, to eighteenth- by the 1970s, sincere hopes for the University of Edinburgh at century dog collars, and reform had been lost and so curatorial projects the conference, New Directions Elizabethan furniture, Mr Bryan’s the studio began to employ within the V&A in Renaissance Italy. I now collection is as rich as it is varied. different strategies. During the or other institutions. hope to present a new study 1970s, the studio’s turn to on paper ex votos at the 60th The Dated Objects project we ‘culturologically’ informed urban These voluntary RSA annual meeting in New York have been working on for Crab Compositional sketches, designs planning and museology for the interior of a passenger aircraft, internship roles in March 2014. The next long- Tree Farm originated when M. Konik, E. Rozenblium, C. Bulatova, suggests attempts to find a provide an invaluable term challenge comes from Mr Bryan noted that some 400 V. Kataeva, early 1970s. means of de-politicising the the opportunity to extend my of these objects had been material environment. insight in to the research on the materiality painted, printed or engraved practical application Paper ex voto, 17th century, Romituzzo of paper to PhD level. My project with a date. Interested to know Tom Cubbin I am also contributing entries Sanctuary, Poggibonsi, Siena, photograph of the skills taught by M. Alessandra Chessa, 2012 entitled, ‘The Silent Revolution. what might motivate someone on Eastern European designers on the course. Alumni © courtesy of the Romituzzo Sanctuary, The Technological Agency to make this kind of physical Since graduating from the MA to the forthcoming Bloomsbury all rights reserved. of Paper in the Early Modern impression on the material course, I have been working Dictionary of Design and I have find these experiences Culture: A Study Across Italy world, Mr Bryan decided further towards my PhD at the University written comment pieces for highly beneficial as Maria Alessandra and England’, for which I was research was needed. Hannah of Sheffield. I am researching the Calvert Journal, a creative they embark on their recently granted the AHRC CDP and I were invited to Chicago a little known design studio guide to Russia. Chessa Doctoral Award, will be co- to see these objects firsthand, established by the Soviet Union chosen careers, ac- supervised by Dr Angela all of them British, ranging from of Artists in 1964 known as Senezh ademic or otherwise. I am driven by a curiosity for McShane and Dr Marta Ajmar. the sixteenth to the eighteenth studio, and I am interested in The following pages observing the signs of everyday century. Since then, our role how designers there reacted to the life from the past inscribed has been to catalogue and re- ‘loss of utopia’ experienced in give a few examples in the most trivial objects, search these pieces — the end the Soviet Union from the 1960s to of the opportunities such as a scrap piece of paper. result will be both a book and the 1970s. The studio was originally available to current My experience as a student an online database. set up in order to safeguard the on the MA course proved to be role of the artist in industrial students and the the perfect opportunity to pursue Our week in Chicago was design at a time when the profes- further academic my interests in a stimulating fascinating. Having come from sion was becoming increasingly and early career paths and challenging academic a museum environment where dominated by scientific-rationalist being pursued by environment. Since completing ‘touching’ is not the norm, we approaches. In the 1960s, Senezh my MA in History of Design, were immersed in a collection was an important site for the recent MA alumni. I have been a Research Assistant that was not kept behind glass, revival of Constructivism and the on the Healthy homes, but was lived with; many objects idea of the ‘socialist object’. Healthy Bodies in Renaissance provided the furnishings of Mr and Early Modern Italy project; Hannah Stockton, Mr J. H. Bryan Bryan’s own house. We were Little attention had been paid and Sophie Cope in Downtown Chicago, a collaborative project sup- May 2013, photograph by Sophie Cope, able to pick things up, to touch, to this concept since the 1920s, Linen shirt, 1750–1800, Britain, T.246-1931, ported by the Wellcome Trust 2013 © Sophie Cope, all rights reserved. and to experience their mate- however the death of Stalin © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. and led by Prof. Sandra Cavallo riality firsthand. It was an in 1953 and the subsequent ‘thaw’ and Dr Tessa Storey (Royal eye-opening experience from under Khrushchev led some to Holloway, University of London). Sophie Cope which we both learnt an extraor- believe that a reformed socialism Alice Dolan More recently I have begun dinary amount. would be possible, and so de- collaborating with Dr Mary Laven In May 2013 Hannah Stockton signers and thinkers at Senezh I am a third year PhD student (University of Cambridge), and I were lucky enough to travel once again began to think about attached to Prof. John Styles’ researching the material culture to Chicago to spend a week living what role objects would play in European Research Council
54 55 Current Students' and Alumni News Current Students' and Alumni News
funded Spinning Project Many of the skills that I de- is set in a distant future when experiences of the city, creating http://spinning-wheel.org/. veloped during my time on the civilisation as we know it has a conception of urban modernity. My thesis, ‘The Fabric of Life: History of Design MA course been destroyed giving rise to an I hold a Collaborative Doctoral Linen and Life Cycle in English have helped me during these alternative dystopia. A group of Award from the Arts and Human- Daily Life c.1678–1810’ explores last few months. The ability designers were commissioned to ities Research Council, and work the domestic production, to balance research and produce twenty new illustrative closely with the British Postal use and cultural meanings administration, have confidence works inspired by it. The results Museum and Archive which holds of linen. with object based research and are staggering. I brief professionals a vast, national collection of a familiarity with the workings and VIPs, most recently the Chief archival material spanning more Linen was a universal fabric; of the V&A have all enabled me Executive of Sky Arts, about the than four hundred years. Painting of Krishna and Radha, Basohli, shirts and shifts, the standard to focus more directly on the show. Every time I have the privi- V&A at Dundee, designed India, ca. 1660–1670, Victoria & Albert form of underwear in by Kengo Kuma, 2010 many other challenges of the job. Museum, IS.122‑1951. © Victoria & Albert lege of narrating its story I am filled Alongside my PhD work, I am eighteenth-century England, © KKAA / Design Dundee Limited. It is also this variety and Museum, London. with excitement and fresh ideas. currently contributing research were worn by rich and poor alternating pace of the day to towards initial planning and alike. Structured around life day work that I most enjoy. exhibitions content for the new cycle, each chapter examines Katherine Elliott Priya Khanchandani British Postal Museum, which is life stages to uncover different As the project is in the early due to open late 2014. As a stu- relationships with linen In January I started work research stages it has been Working in the South Asian dent at the RCA I am working with including emotional attach- as the Assistant Curator for possible to take on a number department at the V&A a number of other PhD/MPhil ments to linen, the time spent the Scottish Design galleries, of students from the History of throughout my MA has turned researchers on various projects, spinning to provision a house- a set of permanent galleries Design Programme as volunteers me into a time traveller. I went including being part of an editorial hold and the quantity of linen in the new V&A Dundee for the project. The tasks to seventeenth-century northern team for a publication of current deemed necessary to establish museum scheduled to open undertaken vary greatly from India, through researching for a humanities students’ work. new households for different at the end of 2015. I am photographing objects in the V&A exhibition on 2000 years of social groups. fortunate to have the prints and drawings depart- Indian paintings. I was swept off opportunity to work with ment, going through archives to ancient Egypt for a moment, The skills and ideas that one of the senior curators at Blythe House and researching when I handled a fragile piece of I developed during the MA in the V&A on the development particular subject areas that textile, a fragment that unlocks course at the V&A/RCA of these galleries. The aim relate to the gallery themes. the story of a time now lost. The have directly influenced my of the galleries will be to It has been extremely rewarding journey took me on a whistle-stop thesis. My MA dissertation on showcase the variety and to have the chance to collab- tour of nineteenth-century Asia, the hall, an early modern ‘open excellence of Scottish design orate and work with some when I worked on a project to plan’ living room, explored along with its global impact. of the current History of Design archive magnificent costumes life cycle, locality and ordinary As such I have had the chance students who all have such from across the continent in A Postal Guide to the Maze of London, objects, ideas which are central to travel around Scotland’s varied interests. I also hope a new textiles research centre; © Royal Mail Group Ltd 2013, courtesy to my PhD thesis. Furthermore many regional museums and that it has been useful for the a process that has involved the of The British Postal Museum & Archive my interest in materiality extraordinary country houses students, as during my time entire curatorial department and sparked during the MA (how learning about their collections on the course it was the is known as the Clothworkers’ William Pether (English, 1731/38–1821), Helen Kearney after Joseph Wright of Derby (English, the properties of a material and the many important volunteering opportunities Project. Finally, I was brought back 1734–1797), Three Persons Viewing the influence its use) has become Scottish design stories. within the different V&A de- to the present, by researching for Gladiator by Candlelight, 1769, 1995.31, a major research interest and Since January I have under- partments and the opportunity a new project on the cutting-edge I am a PhD candidate at the Royal The Art Institute of Chicago, © The Art Institute of Chicago. I have been awarded a research taken a major survey of the to meet curators that gave topic of Indian design now. College of Art, investigating the fellowship at Winterthur, V&A’s collections locating me the most insight into the highly influential role of mapping Delaware in November 2013 and compiling all the Scottish curatorial process and encour- Since completing my MA, I have in London, from the Victorian Laura Quintrell to engage with issues of material that often may aged me to pursue my ambition been working as spokesperson for period to 1960. The focus of my materiality and touch using not be catalogued as Scottish. of working as part of a a V&A exhibition, Memory Palace. work is the London Postal Map. From June until August 2013, their textile collection. Consequently we have curatorial team. Part novel, part contemporary I am questioning how this key I was interning at the Art found that there are over design, the show is a unique communications innovation Institute of Chicago, in the Prints 12,000 Scottish objects in marriage between literature and influenced the built environment and Drawings Department. As the collections. objects. The novel, by Hari Kunzru, of London, and how it changed an intern, I assisted Suzanne
56 57 Current Students' and Alumni News Current Students' and Alumni News
Folds McCullaugh, the Anne We became familiar with the research into the period room QMUL, Dr Margarette Lincoln, This has included a photographic Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus use of pin-ups; the selection from La Tournerie, and in specific Deputy Director, National Mar- lifetime retrospective of the Chair and Curator of Prints and process employed to choose the work on the imagery and iconog- itime Museum, and Dr Nigel iconic 82-year-old model Carmen Drawings, with research and objects displayed and the themes raphy of the La Nature figure Rigby, Head of Research, Dell’Orefice, new work by the documentation of the Art of these displays, and then group (C.361-2009). The project National Maritime Museum. latest generation of fashion Institute’s collections of works moved on to assisting with the has provided students with a designers and illustrators, an on paper. As one of the premier ‘mock-ups’ of the galleries. unique opportunity to gain The title of the project is Imperial historical survey of fashionable museum collections of works We were also afforded the privi- insight into the curatorial process Thames: London, River and eyewear, and millinery on the on paper in the United States, lege of attending, as observers, and organisation that goes into Empire, 1660–1830. Working catwalk. In the past year, together and a unique department, some of the meetings between such a substantial museum closely within both institutions, with my colleague Gemma as paper conservation is housed the curators and the designers, undertaking. We would like I will be exploring the visual, Williams, I have taken a leading within, this internship offered held in the evolving gallery space. to extend our thanks to the material and literary tropes role in gallery programming, strong opportunities for museum Casket on stand, Mother-of-Pearl veneer, curators who have generously associated with the social and devising a series of exhibitions research. My duties ranged gilt-bronze and gilt-copper mounts, Now that the project is moving integrated History of Design commercial life of the Thames entitled ‘Elements of Fashion’. kingwood and spindle wood veneered from day to day administrative base, with engraved and painted ivory, into its final stages the tasks students into this project. in London in the long eighteenth This programme sought to assistance with the Glore on a poplar carcase, Turin, ca 1745, for the volunteers have moved century, addressing two key engage with objects and concepts Print Study Room that might Pietro Piffetti (1700–1777), W.34-1946, away from practical to more questions: How did empire often less considered in the include art handling and © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. research-based projects. reshape the Thames? And how curatorial context, some of which class supervision to researching The nature of the volunteer did changing representations of exist on the peripheries of the potential new seventeenth- assistance at this point is very the Thames play a part in fashion system, and investigate and eighteenth-century Jan Sibthorpe much about helping the curators imagining and reimagining emerging areas of design, such as Dutch drawings for depart- to further explore and/or con- Britain’s imperial role? leather artefact and 3D printing. mental acquisition. Europe 1600–1800 Galleries solidate their research and A FuturePlan Phase 2 Project understanding of objects and Prior to joining the V&A/RCA Perhaps the most intriguing http://www.vam.ac.ak/content/ topics. From the curators’ History of Design Programme, project of the summer articles/i/futureplan-phase-2/ perspective having volunteers I had worked both as a fashion was having the opportunity help with these tasks is ex- designer and journalist. Through to work on an exhibition relating The re-developed European tremely valuable, primarily in my coursework, I developed a to the Art Institute’s Goldman Galleries will contain some terms of time as the curatorial critical framework and meth- Collection of master drawings of the most magnificent and team are not able to dedicate odologies for interpreting design going on view in 2014. elaborate works of art and as much time as they would like practice and its cultural context The summer in the Prints design in the V&A collections. to researching objects. which have unquestionably and Drawings Department Spectacular examples of textiles informed my work as a curator. was a valuable experience and fashion, painting and The results of the volunteers’ While the majority of my work affording me the opportunity sculpture, ceramics and glass, work can provide the curators is focused on contemporary A Thames Wharf, oil painting, ca 1757, to strengthen my skills and furniture and metalwork, prints with information that increases Samuel Scott (1702–1772), FA.249(0), practice, the opportunity to Silvia Weidenbach, ‘Layer by Layer’, Fashion © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. knowledge of collections and books will all be repre- their understanding of objects Space Gallery, 2013, photography by Katy engage with a rich array of management, along with sented in stunning new which, in turn, can affect how Davies, © Fashion Space Gallery. historical content has proven drawing and printmaking tech- galleries, opening in 2014. they catalogue, interpret and invaluable, particularly when niques. Both areas will serve present the objects going into Hannah Stockton engaging with new areas of as vital assets to my own As volunteers we have been the new galleries. Leanne Wierzba digitally-aided design which research as I move forward into able to take part in various In October 2013 I will be starting potentially hold so much promise the second year of my MA aspects of this exciting project. Students are currently involved work on an AHRC Collaborative For the past two years I have for the future. In this instance, when I hope to investigate the In the early stages our involve- in ongoing research relating to Doctoral Award studentship at served as a resident curator history serves as a means of printed ephemera related to ment ranged from researching black histories and experiences in Queen Mary University of London at Fashion Space Gallery, London grounding innovation in the women and work in eighteenth- and compiling contextual the 17th and 18th centuries, which and the National Maritime Mu- College of Fashion. During this present and assessing its dynamic century London and abroad. images, to collating material for is helping the project to compile seum, Greenwich, supervised by period I have contributed to the role within material culture. the designers and photographing additional information for the Professor Miles Ogborn, School realistion of eight exhibitions prints, drawings and paintings development of a ‘Black Heritage’ of Geography, Professor Markman on a range of subjects related to from the V&A’s collections. digital tour app; in concentrated Ellis, School of English and Drama, the diversified field of fashion.
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The V&A/RCA History of Design Marilyn Zapf course has enabled me to look at objects from new perspec- The Center for Craft, Creativity tives. In addition to considering & Design is a non-profit Staff Research the pictorial meaning of paint- organization that advances ings, my course experience the understanding of craft by Profiles encourages me to rethink encouraging and supporting their role as objects through research, critical dialogue, contemplating issues such as and professional development. display, function and production. The Center focuses its efforts It is very exciting that the through its programs — which exhibition’s conference, entitled range from awarding grants The Making of Chinese Painting: and convening thought leaders 700 to the Present, will reflect to developing resources and such interests. displaying exhibitions.
I am also continuing my MA The strength of the organiza- research on local/global rela- tion lies in its agile ability to Unidentified Artist, Bodhisattva as Guide tions and packaging design, meet needs identified by and of Souls, 2nd half 9th century, The British as well as expanding into other in the craft field. Notably, the Museum (1919,0101,0.47), © Trustees areas in modern and con- Center administers the Craft of the British Museum. temporary Chinese art and Research Fund, one of the design history. primary funding sources for Jennifer Wong scholarship on American craft and recently facilitated the I am currently the Assistant first comprehensive survey of Curator of the ‘Masterpieces modern studio craft in the of Chinese Painting 700–1900’ United States, Makers: A History exhibition, which will run of American Studio Craft. from October 2013 until January 2014 at the Victoria and Albert As Assistant Director of The Museum. In addition to assisting Center for Craft, Creativity the lead curator in delivering & Design, I oversee the full the exhibition, I am also involved scope of programming. Of late in the production of the accom- I wrote our first strategic panying catalogue and the programming plan in anti- planning of an international cipation of the Center’s conference. It has been a wonder- upcoming move into a new ful journey as I have had the facility in downtown Asheville, opportunity to work closely North Carolina. Other projects with colleagues across many I am working on include departments in the Museum, researching and developing including Exhibitions, Publishing, future exhibitions, a materials- Learning, Development, Press, based research lab/residency Marketing and Merchandise. program, and a curatorial It has also been incredibly craft fellowship. I am parti- rewarding to work directly cularly passionate about with external exhibition de- drawing the design and Logo of The Center for Craft, Creativity signers and see the exhibition & Design, © The Center for Craft, creativity aspects of our name come together. Creativity & Design. into future programming.
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The History of Design Postgraduate Dr Glenn Adamson Renaissance Techne: Practising the Mechanical Arts, Foundry in a project led by Irene Gunston and Becky Programme is taught by a dedicated 1400–1600, which proposes a re-assessment of Whitmore which provided the students with an All in the V&A/RCA History of Design Postgraduate the role and understanding of the ‘mechanical’ invaluable opportunity to combine a new tool — the team of academics who are leading Programme community extend their congratulations or ‘productive’ arts in the Renaissance. One strand practical engagement with the making of a bronze specialists in various fields of design to Glenn for his appointment as Director of the of this research looks at the role and understanding object from design to finish — to their scholarly history and material culture, from Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City. of disegno in relation to technological thinking equipment as historians of design. As the flagship museum for craft in the USA, this in the Italian Renaissance. Some initial thoughts the V&A and the RCA. The diversity institution is a natural next step for him and we wish were presented at the European University Institute I continue to serve on the IHR Mellon Fellowships of expertise the team brings to him the best in the new role. After two years as Head in Florence and at the ICOM-CC Art Technological Committee. I recently joined the Faculty of the Programme is delivered with of Research at the V&A, Glenn takes up the Director- Sources and Research meeting in Brussels and Archaeology, History and Letters of the British commitment, vitality and a genuine ship at MAD in October 2013. He will have ongoing are articulated in a forthcoming article for the School at Rome. connections to the Programme through a continuing RIHA Journal. See fig. 2, page 66. interest in the research of the stu- appointment as a visiting tutor at the RCA. dents themselves. Members of the I am interested in exploring the global connections team also actively develop their own Glenn will also maintain an advisory role at the V&A, — material, aesthetic, technological — between in relation to a project that he conceived entitled different forms or ‘media’. I presented some recent research interests and projects, which The Future: A History, which will open the V&A’s new work comparing Far-Eastern, Islamic and Italian Professor Jeremy Aynsley in turn enrich the depth and breadth Exhibition Road galleries in 2017. The show will consist lacquer work and ceramics and engaging with of the Programme. The following staff of forward-looking or ‘speculative’ art and design issues of material complexity at a series of research During the year I extended my research interests from the past and present. A non-linear, thematically events, where I have enjoyed discussing these ideas in postwar design by contributing an essay on profiles give an insight into some of arranged array of projective, predictive, divinatory, with colleagues in many different scholarly fields. design in Germany and Switzerland since 1945 for the projects currently being pursued utopian and dystopian works, the exhibition gathers These have included a keynote conference lecture the publication L’Art du Design, to be published by members of the Programme. material from across the worlds of art and design, for the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval by Citadelles et Mazenod, Paris, in autumn 2013. made across many centuries. and Renaissance Studies, the MEMS Dorothy Ford The project was commissioned by Dominique Wiley Crossroads Lecture at the University of North Forest, Chief Curator at the Musée des Arts In the year previous to his departure Glenn brought Carolina, where I was visiting professor, a lecture Décoratifs and presents profiles of many national to fruition several scholarly projects. He published for the British School at Rome and a paper at a design traditions in the second half of the two books in 2013 — a monograph entitled The CRASSH symposium in Cambridge. twentieth century. Invention of Craft (V&A/Bloomsbury) and a volume of essays, co-edited with Victoria Kelley, entitled I have been involved in a number of collaborative The pairing of Germany and Switzerland led me to Surface Tensions (Manchester University Press). projects. With Dr Richard Checketts (University of investigate parallel and contrasting initiatives which He has published further work in journals such as Leeds) I co-convened a CAA panel in New York enga- expanded my previous work in exhibitions and publi- Afterall, The Burlington Magazine, and Crafts, and ging with materials as objects of historical study. cations on modern design, particularly in the German in catalogues for museums including the Santa The discussion will continue in April 2014 through language sphere. Research was undertaken in Barbara Museum of Art and for the V&A. He also a panel for the AAH (London, RCA) which we are specialist libraries in Berlin and Zurich, drawing on acted as guest curator for two external exhibitions: co-hosting with Dr Christine Guth. This collaboration both periodical searches and collection-based study. Fix Fix Fix (Gallery SO, London) and Tenderness is now expanding into a broader collaborative Questions central to the project concern the contras- (F15 Gallery, Moss, Norway). research project focussing on material transforma- ting positions of Switzerland, the Federal Republic tion in early modern Europe. I enjoyed contributing and Democratic Republic of Germany during the See fig. 1, page 66. to the IHR symposium, Healthy Living in Pre-Modern period of postwar reconstruction and the significant Europe, an off-shoot of the Wellcome-funded colla- role that design education held in countries associ- borative research project Healthy Homes, Healthy ated with established and highly regarded traditions. Bodies in Late Renaissance Italy, led by Prof. Sandra Along with this was the need to evaluate the part Dr Marta Ajmar Cavallo and Dr Tessa Storey. A recent collaboration innovation and creativity played in shaping design with Prof. Sven Dupré (Max Planck Institute for the as a cultural, economic, technological or moral force This year has offered many opportunities for History of Science) has enabled us to set up the new for competing ideals of a new society. research, scholarly exchange and collaboration. joint post-doctoral fellowship, starting in 2014. My recent work concentrates on questions of My research interests continue to feed into my The research involved understanding systems of artisanal practice, materiality and the epistemology teaching and benefit enormously from the constant design selection and acquisition by major museum of materials in the Renaissance. This research is exchange with our vibrant student community. collections, as both an historical and contemporary feeding into an on-going book-length project, This year I particularly enjoyed working with the RCA issue. In the 1950s and 60s, the category of ‘Gute
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Form’ was especially prevalent in these countries, gone away. Japonaiserie reigned supreme in the late presented at the Toshiba Lectures series in London by which the promotion of design conferred values nineteenth century, but Chinese styles rose in in November 2008. Since then I have spoken on on objects of industrial design, particularly through popularity again during the early twentieth century. aspects of this topic, most recently, at the University Dr Stephen Knott organisations such as the German and Swiss Chinese furniture, lampshades, evening coats, of Lancaster. In July, I also expanded on my book Werkbund. I looked for evidence of connections, hairstyles and dogs provided British women with for a paper presented at the Sainsbury Institute for I was the third holder of the AHRC-funded Modern contrasts and competition between the countries new ways to be stylish and modern, whether daring Japanese Studies’ workshop, Cultural Preservation Craft: History, Theory and Practice Collaborative in the context of exhibitions, as well as through or conservative. In China, political and social from the Grass Roots. This focused on the adaptation Doctoral Award at the Royal College of Art / Victoria exchange between individual designers, such as turbulence was transforming dress, interior design of ‘The Great Wave’ in a living rice paddy using & Albert Museum. My PhD, ‘Amateur Craft as a Max Bill and Dieter Rams. The essay concludes and the cityscape. In Europe, a decidedly backward- varieties of rice of different colors to draw public Differential Practice’, explores the historical evidence with consideration of the recent artist-driven looking engagement with pre-twentieth-century attention to the historic place of rice cultivation in and theoretical richness of this marginalised phe- design movements and trend towards consumer- Chinese material culture revitalised, visually Japan’s northern Aomori Prefecture. nomenon. Using a range of case studies from oriented design. ‘overhauled’ and sometimes even radically altered nineteenth-century suburban chicken keeping in the British feminine cultural landscape. During this academic year, I also began a new book England, to the fad for paint-by-number kits in 1950's I expect to develop this comparative mode of project focusing on materials, making and meaning USA, the thesis explores the peculiar characteristics, analysis of national design cultures and the Fashion and Ethnicity explores the ways in which in early modern Japan. It will include a consideration idiosyncrasy and utopian drive that lies behind migration of Modernism in the mid 20th century ethnic identity is used to create particular definitions of needle-making, parts of which were presented labour undertaken voluntarily in one’s free time. as a major research initiative that will link earlier of fashionable dress, and the ways that fashionable in the Anthropology Department at Oxford and the work on diasporas of design and culture. dress is used within the construction of particular Design Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden in Novem- From October 2012 to September 2013 I was the ethnic identities. In addition to media represen- ber, 2012. A lecture on the use of shark and rayskin, Founder Post-doctoral Fellow in Modern Craft at As Director of Research at the RCA, I am currently tations, fashion is an embodied practice that involves a second theme in the projected book, was delivered the Crafts Study Centre, Farnham. This involved leading the College’s preparation for the Research paying attention to the body — an unambiguous at the conference, Global Commodities: The Material research on the pedagogic philosophies of the studio Excellence Framework exercise which will take site of ‘racial’ signifiers — as well as thinking about Culture of Early Modern Connections, 1400–1800, craft movement — using the extensive collections place in 2014. I continue in my capacity as Editorial particular kinds of rituals of dressing and consuming, at Warwick University in December 2012. This was at the Centre — but looked beyond famous names Advisory Board member on Material Culture exhibiting and creating. Western fashion is com- further developed for a lecture on the material’s use such as Bernard Leach and Ethel Mairet, to the Review, Design History Japan and Interiors: Design, monly regarded as an international, cosmopolitan in Art Deco furniture presented at the V&A’s furni- broader participation in craft practices, both amateur Architecture, Culture. practice, yet non-western fashion designers (a highly ture workshop in May, 2013. and professional, through government backed problematic categorisation in itself) are all too often evening classes. See fig. 3, page 66 faced with the questions of ethnic identity that I was involved in several international events this are framed as a kind of dilemma. From Kashmiri year. In December, I travelled to Hong Kong to The doctoral research has initiated further work shawls to Nigerian head wraps to the current pages participate in a symposium, Asian Design: Histories, on amateur craft practice, hobbies, do-it-yourself, of Vogue, this project focuses on historical and Collecting, Curating, at the M+ Museum, where and the potential and limitations of the non- Dr Sarah Cheang contemporary case studies of fashion in relation Shirley Surya, a 2011 graduate of the Asian specialism professional designer/artist. I have written articles to race, nation, post-colonialism and diasporic is a curator. In March, I organized an international on railway modelling and the producing consumer My teaching and research interests reflect my identities, to formulate new ways of understan- symposium, Global Perspectives on Color, at the RCA (‘prosumer’) for Design and Culture and contributed passion and commitment to the broadening of ding and studying fashion. in collaboration with Osaka University and funding an essay on paint-by-number kits to the edited curricula to include the study of non-Western art from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. volume entitled Surface Tensions (Manchester See fig. 4, page 67 and design, and embodied feminine responses to It featured papers by Liz Stanford and Josephine University Press, forthcoming), as well as a short material culture. My last book-length project was Rout, two graduates of the Programme, who also piece of writing for Collaborations Through Craft an edited collection on the cultural meanings of assisted in organizing this event. A lecture on chan- (Bloomsbury, 2013). I teach at Kingston University, hair, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion (2008). I now ging western taste for Japanese crafts, co-organized Camberwell College of Art and the Royal College have two separate monographs in preparation: Dr Christine Guth with the assistance of the Eddie Davis Fund, given of Art. I am the Managing Editor for the Journal of Sinophilia and Fashion and Ethnicity. This current by Professor Shigemi Inaga of the International Modern Craft (Bloomsbury). research centres on an exploration of histories This year saw the completion of one long-term Research Center for Japanese Studies, was another See fig. 6, page 67 of cross-cultural identity, fashion, the body and research project and the start of another. My book highlight of the summer term. material culture. manuscript Hokusai’s Great Wave: Biography of a Global Icon, a study of this image’s many lives across In addition to teaching and research, I continue to Sinophilia examines femininity and twentieth- space, time, and media from its appearance in 1831 serve as co-editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of century fashions for Chinese things in Britain. until 2012, was accepted for publication by the Asian Art and on the editorial board of West 87 th, Chinoiserie, most often associated with the eight- University of Hawaii Press. Research began when the Bard journal. eenth century, has been in and out of fashion I was a Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center See fig. 5, page 67 over the last three centuries but has never really in 2006–2007, and the first chapters were later
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Fig. 1: Cinderella Table, Jeroen Verhoeven, 2005, Birch plywood, cutting; computer controlled, W.1-2006, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 2: Casket, Venice, ca 1575–1600, softwood with Beechwood (possibly) veneers inset with Mother-of-Pearl plaques, painted and with gilt embellishments; within, a glass mirror and lined with later red velvet; bronze handles, 7901-1861, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 3: Kitchen Wall Clock, by Max Bill (1908–1994), and Ernst Moeckl. Metal, plastic and ceramic, Schamberg, Germany, 1956, M.224-2007, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 4: Lombardi & Co, Guy Little Theatrical photograph, Clara Jecks in Chinese Dress, 1892, S.148:662-2007, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
6 Fig. 5: Inro made of lacquer over shagreen, 2.5 cm, British Museum 1937,0217.11, © Trustees of the British Museum.
Fig. 6: Half-finished, self-painted Times Square paint-by-number, made from a Reeves kit (2010), photograph by Stephen Knott, © Stephen Knott. 3 10
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Fig. 7: The Lamenting Ladies Last Farewell, Manchester Central Library, photograph courtesy of Ian Todd.
Fig. 8: The Perfect Place to Grow: 175 Years of the Royal College of Art, exhibition catalogue cover, designed 8 by Neville Brody, © RCA 2012. Fig. 9: Girl Punk, tapestry, Candace Bahouth, 1980, T.55-1985, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 10: Workshop at wood furniture manufacturer Fukui Mokkojo, Shizuoka, Japan, December 2013, photograph by Sarah Teasley, 2013, courtesy of Fukui Mokkojo, Shizuoka Japan, © Sarah Teasley, all rights reserved.
Fig. 11: Model of a twin-hulled ship designed by Sir William Petty FRS (c. 1685), © Royal Society.
Fig. 12: ‘St George and the Dragon’: ‘Xie Kitchen and Her Brothers at Christ Church, Oxford’. Photograph by Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), E.145-2009, 9 12 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Staff Research Profiles Staff Research Profiles
Dr Angela McShane intoxicants in early modernity — embedding prac- The RCA School of Humanities offers a range of post- interdisciplinary investigation that analysed tech- tices that have had a profound impact on our modern graduate (MA and PhD) programmes in art and niques of collage, bricolage, mixing and sampling I have spent a good deal of time in 2013 working on lives and experience. The project begins in October design writing, curating, historical and critical studies. within women’s lived experience. In particular a monograph to complement the critical bibliography with two full-time research assistants ready to join Over the last year, I have been developing a cross- I theorise the agentive action of each group’s style, published in 2011. Provisionally entitled ‘Rime and us in the arduous but exciting and intellectually school interdisciplinary programme for doctoral defined as the punk ‘cut’, the Greenham Common Reason’ The Political World of the Broadside Ballad in challenging process of collecting and transcribing the studies. Building on its strong partnerships with ‘layer’, the hip hop ‘break’ and the ‘fold’ of the hijab, Early Modern England, this has been a richly reward- materials that will inspire the design of our database. institutions such as the V&A, and its close relation- as embodied. The study throws into crisis any ing and challenging project. The book deals with a ship to contemporary art and design practice at the essentialist ideas about the body, gender, a fashion uniquely accessible, multi-media print form, the Finally, this has been a tremendous year for Early RCA, the School supports scholarly research with object or the fashion system. It pushes at the bound- seventeenth-century broadside ballad. The epitome Modern History of Design Students. There was a super direct relevance to contemporary history, art and aries of conventional design and fashion history of a History of Design topic; these apparently simple crop of MA dissertations, several of which we hope design practice and museum initiatives. scholarship in its exploration of embodied style as single-sheet objects, printed on one side with words will be taken forward to a PhD, while Dr Jasmine intertextual, shifting and mutating. and, in many cases, images, are in fact immensely Kilburn Toppin sailed though her V&A/RCA viva with I am currently supervising several MPhil/PhD stu- complex items. To study them requires a knowledge a flawless and highly impressive dissertation on dents working on post war to contemporary design Prior to this research I completed a Masters in Inter- of paper and printing technologies and trades, news ‘Craft Identities of the London Livery Companies’. history. My teaching this year reflected my recent national History at the London School of Economics and information networks, the state and status of and current research, and was particularly concerned and worked as a journalist and an editor for Newsweek See fig. 7, page 68 early modern English ‘vernacular’ graphic arts and with methodologies for understanding Modernism and The Economist. More recently I have published woodworking skills. Through the analysis of the and its late twentieth-century critiques. Other current essays in Global Design History (Routledge, 2011), Oral images, fashionable bodies, monarchical portraits projects include a consultancy with Vitra Museum History in the Visual Arts (Bloomsbury, 2013), and have and mental mapping have come into play. Both to provide a framework for post-war furniture history, contributed an article in a special issue on fashion wordsmiths and tunesmiths were involved in the Professor Jane Pavitt in the form of an overview essay for their forth- by the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal WSQ making of these sheets, involving the study of music coming Atlas of Furniture. I am also contributing (June, 2013). printing and performance in streets, theatres and My research expertise is in 1945 to contemporary to the development of the planned V&A exhibition courts. Investigations of song writing have led to design history, particularly in areas that reflect my The Future: A History (curated by Glenn Adamson), I teach design history and fashion theory, and have literatures on Classical rhetorics and literary genres, curatorial background at the V&A. I was co-curator through an AHRC funded network session on modern presented at various conferences and symposia, especially poetry, and to the history of emotions. of the V&A exhibitions Cold War Modern: Design technocracies and visualizations of the future. For including The Postmodern Legacy (V&A, 2011) and One only has to think about how socially embedded 1945–70 (2008, co-curated with RCA Professor David 2014, I am the lead convener for the 40th Anniversary will be participating in the Design History Annual and influential popular music is in our own world Crowley) and Postmodernism: Style and Subversion Annual Art Historians Association Conference, which Conference in Ahmadabad, India, in September — the recent David Bowie exhibition at the V&A 1970–1990 (2011, co-curated with V&A Head of will be held at the RCA on 10–12th April next year. 2013. I am also working on turning my thesis into comes immediately to mind — determining fashions, Research Dr Glenn Adamson). Since their completion, a book, and plan to develop future research around See fig. 8, page 68 graphic arts, defining youth sub-cultures and I have been pursuing research themes generated themes of gender and identity in posthuman and political identities, to see how these flimsy sheets, by these exhibitions, focussed on the international digital frameworks. the ‘must have’ CDs of their day, not only offer a policies, practices and pedagogies of design in the See fig. 9, page 68 unique insight into the early modern world, they cold war and post-cold war period, particularly acted as agents in it, playing a unique role in making in areas which explore the experimental and techno- Dr Shehnaz Suterwalla the ‘popular’ politics of the period. cratic culture for design research. I was contributor to the 175th anniversary RCA exhibition in autumn I completed my PhD in History of Design at the Other projects have also been developing over the 2012, including a catalogue essay on the develop- Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal College of Art. Dr Sarah Teasley year. In March, along with partners Professor Phil ment of ‘systems thinking’ and design research In my research I investigate how British women since Withington and Mike Pidd of HRI Digital Humanities 1950–1975 at the RCA. the 1970s have used dress to resist dominant ideals I spent much of the 2012/2013 academic year ex- at University of Sheffield, we were awarded a large of femininity and womanhood. My thesis was based ploring how historians of design and material culture grant jointly by the ESRC and AHRC for a three year As Dean of the RCA School of Humanities, I am also on oral interviews with women in four case studies: can engage with public policy. As an Arts and data-base project, Intoxication and Early Modernity responsible for developing new initiatives in part- punks in the 1970s, women who lived at Greenham Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Early Career 1550–1750. The aim of the project is to bring together nership with the V&A, which include a proposed Common Peace Camp in the 1980s, black women in Fellow through December 2012, I spent the autumn a wide range of archival documentation, such as port collaboration in the field of performance history hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s, and Muslim women term on research leave, asking the following ques- books, church and other court records, guild records, and theory. Drawing on the superlative performance in the hijab since 2001. The case studies were de- tions: How can we qualitatively measure the impact wills and inventories, objects and visual and literary collections of the V&A, and the combined expertise liberately disparate, but they were chosen because of industrial policy on social and economic wellbeing, materials to create a publicly accessible research of RCA and V&A in relation to the performing arts each one represents an important turn in British and the extent to which specific regions themselves data base (along the lines of Proceedings of the Old and their design and material cultures, this new gendered identity politics of the last forty years, since determine what that impact will be? What mech- Bailey Online) from which we can gain a much better initiative will offer an innovative platform for post- punk style was interpreted by subcultural theory anisms — knowledge transfer networks, formal knowledge of the social and cultural operation of graduate research and teaching. as resistance. This was a post-postmodern education and so on — most effectively support the
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creation and continued wellbeing of sustainable History of Design, Contemporary Design History, In particular this year, my essay ‘Three-Dimensional dress has been caught on camera. From the mid- regional industries? How might historical research that asked first-year MA students to develop their Models as ‘In-Between-Objects’ — the Creation nineteenth century, photography and dressing up, from a design and material culture perspective own research framework for addressing contem- of In-Between Knowledge in Early Modern Archi- inseparable and interdependent, were practised by contribute to current national conversations in the porary issues through history. tectural Practice’, was published in the special issue more people, and more kinds of people, than at any UK about government support for industry, including of the journal History of Technology devoted to previous time. The anxieties and conventions of See fig. 10, page 69 the provision of skills, technology R&D and funding? ‘Conceptualizing the Production and Diffusion of everyday dressing were cast aside by those who I spent much of the autumn in Japan, researching my Useful and Reliable Knowledge in Early Modern donned fancy dress, and the role of photography case study: the relationship between policy and the Europe’. It brings together my research on knowledge to fix these flights of fancy and to give them a wood furniture manufacturing industry in twentieth- and skill production-cum-diffusion with my interest permanence they would not otherwise have, offers century Japan. I visited wood furniture manufac- Dr Simona Valeriani in the use of 3D models in early modern times. us the chance to understand what animated peoples’ turers and local industrial research institutes, worked imaginations during different periods. through public, corporate and personal archives and I took up my position at the V&A, teaching on the In this context I have organized a workshop, hosted interviewed retired and current designers, engineers, V&A / RCA History of Design Programme in Septem- by the Royal Society and attended by international Right from the introduction of the carte-de-visite materials researchers, entrepreneurs, industry ber 2012. It has been a very busy, and extremely scholars entitled Matters of Thought: Models and format to Britain in the 1860s, people of quite modest association representatives and ministry officials in interesting, year finishing off old projects and getting Knowledge Production in the Early Modern World. means stood in front of the camera swapping their Tokyo and key manufacturing regions. more familiar with my two new ‘homes’: the V&A This one-day workshop will focus on the role played everyday dress for something altogether more fan- and the RCA. by models in the production and circulation of tastic. For instance, the recurrent fascination with One highlight was afternoons spent discussing ma- knowledge, and their function as ‘loci’ in which ideas China and Japan was played out across Europe and chinery, new materials and prototypes — all impacted It was very exciting to be able to incorporate so are tested and future scenarios materialized. The em- America in many cultural misreadings, not least by by industrial policy — with the men who had created much of my ongoing research in the teaching and phasis will be on three-dimensional models in way of dressing up. The kimono and Chinese robe, and used them. Another particular delight was the I am looking forward to doing it even more in the relation to a fourth dimension, time. The workshop or an approximation of them, together with the fan chance to reflect on the actual and multiple impacts years to come. is accompanied by a small exhibition featuring and parasol, all came to be a recognised set of signi- of specific public policies, geopolitical events and models produced during, or connected with, the fiers for ‘Japanese’ or ‘Chinese’, and the style was economic shifts with the people who had experienced Some of my time was taken up by conferences and early history of the Royal Society. taken up by amateur sitters and professional actresses them and, in the case of policies, implemented and workshops in connection with my previous research alike. The much critiqued photographs by Charles See fig. 11, page 69 sometimes designed them. on the Useful and R/reliable Knowledge in the East Dodgson (Lewis Carroll, 1832–1898) include ones he and the West project at the London School of Eco- made of Lorina and Alice Liddell in Chinese costumes; However, the most exciting element of the research nomics, which will be published as a monograph dressing-up and play acting were his favourite was the response from interlocutors who saw the provisionally entitled In-Between Knowledge: ‘Useful themes as he pursued his hobby in the 1860s and, research as directly addressing many of their own and Reliable’ Knowledge in Europe 15 th – 18 th century. Verity Wilson ever since that time, children have appeared as concerns for their firms, regions and industries today. photographic subjects in fancy dress. At the present Interviews ran hours over time and one-day sessions In fact, one of the main aspects of my research re- My area of expertise is East Asian textiles and dress time, I am investigating a complete album, now in turned into multi-day visits; more formally, I have lates to skill and knowledge in early modern Europe. and I have published widely in this field. My com- the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which shows since been asked to present my research to Japanese While I have worked on different aspects of this panion volumes, Chinese Dress and Chinese Textiles children costumed for a fancy dress ball. The albumen industry organisations and major multinationals. topic such as pedagogical trends and curricula, describe and decode the eclectic holdings of the silver prints from glass negatives were made by Owen encyclopedias and compendia, prizes and patent Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Angel of Exeter (1821–1909) to commemorate the ju- From January, I returned to my regular role at the systems, and scientific wish lists, I give special co-authored Dress in Detail from Around the World venile ball held by the mayor of that city in the 1870s. Royal College of Art, teaching on the History of emphasis to the role played by artifacts and physical brings to light the many narratives embedded in See fig. 12, page 69 Design Programme and leading the Critical and spaces in these processes. How was knowledge garments from across the globe and now in the Historical Studies component for MA programmes created, ‘stored’ and transmitted? In what ways V&A’s collection. in the RCA School of Design. I continued pursuing can we consider artifacts as material evidence of my questions: by appearing on Radio 4’s Start the such skills and knowledge? My research on cross-cultural dressing feeds into Week to discuss art and design education; by par- my current work which centres on fancy dress ticipating in a three-day workshop at the Institute A focus of my research in recent years has been on and disguise. One strand of this work looks at the for Government; by presenting research results to objects as vehicles for the transmission of knowledge symbiotic relationship between dressing up and the Employers Forum at the ESRC Centre on Skills, through space and time, as well as on the role they photography. Putting on fancy dress is a magical act Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) play in the construction of our identity. I have pub- and its transforming powers enable the wearer to at Oxford University; by joining events with the lished work on the function of objects such as briefly inhabit another world. From its beginnings, Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group and models, instruments and maps, in mediating between photography also had an association with magic. Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation different epistemic cultures (e.g. the crafts and more It quickly became known for its ability to deceive Group; and by running a one-week workshop in formal, ‘academic’ knowledge) in early modern times. and, relentlessly from photography’s invention, fancy
72 73 MA Elizabeth Cummings Sadie Hough Mariah Nielson PhD Cell Phones and Work/Wear: Clothing in Form Follows Culture: Degree Recipients Imogen Adams Wearables: Weighing British Manufacturing, Architectural Models Marina Emmanouil 2013 “Lost in the 50’s”? the Importance of 1959–1982 in London, 1970–1979 Graphic Design Mythology and Product Design and and Modernisation Metamorphosis in the Technological Change Julia Jalaluddin Jane Osmond in Greece, 1945–1970 Revival of the Diner in the Design of Designing the Nation: Crossing Horns: Emerging Product Types Identity, Design and Understanding Horn Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin Gemma Ashe Nation Branding in Seventeenth-Century Crafting Artisanal Fashioning an Ideal Abigail Doran in Malaysia 1990–2012 England Identities in Early Representation: ‘Correcting’ Children: Modern London: An Examination of Disability and Design Abigail Kenyon Verity Relph The Spatial, Material the Concept of the Ideal in Britain, 1900–1948 China Pictorial: State The Medieval Tower- and Social Practices English Gentleman Design, Ideal Vision and House Transformed: of Guild Communities and Gentlewoman Emily Dunn Disjuncture 1951–1957 Gentry Housing c.1560–1640 between 1583 and 1641 Cremation and in the English West the Sensorial: Bodies, Priya Khanchandani March 1540–1603 Shehnaz Suterwalla Carys Bailey Materiality and the A New India: Defining From Punk to the Hijab: The Teddy Girls: Disposal of the Dead Urban Space in Navi Hannah Stockton Women’s Embodied Locating Femininity in Late Victorian England Mumbai Death is a Leveller? Dress as Performative in the Evolution A Common Culture of Resistance, 1970s of a Subcultural Style Lauren Fried Kajal Meghani Grieving in Seventeenth- to the Present Design As Cure? Indian ‘Handymen’: Century England Heather Bennett Treating the Male Thomason College and ‘The Key to Better Living’, to Female Trans Body Technical Education in Rebecca Unsworth Mail Order Catalogue through Strategies Colonial India (1847– Impossible Fashions? Shopping, ‘Bring A Great of Design in Medical 1947) Making and Wearing Store Into The Comfort Of Discourse, 1890 to 1970 Late Sixteenth-Century the Home’, 1950s–1970s Colin Melia Clothing Xin He Students in Architecture: Miranda Clow The Resurgence Architectural Education From Nothing to of Ancestral Halls in in Britain 1958–1978 Something: The Making Post-Mao China of the Sun Fire Office in the Eighteenth Century
74 75 The Basil Taylor Memorial V&A Language Awards The Oliver Ford Trust V&A Global Fashion Awards and Prizes Prize to support disser- to support research: Scholarship: Sophie Cope History Scholarship: Benefactors to First Year tation research travel: Hollie Chung and (Renaissance specialism) Anuradha Lingala Cohort 2013 Hannah Lee (Renaissance Hannah Lee (both (Modern specialism) The V&A/RCA specialism) and Andrea Renaissance specialism) The Sylvia Lennie History of Design The Gillian Naylor Essay Tam (Modern specialism) England Fund: Postgraduate Prize in Memory Hannah Lee and Awards and Prizes Programme of Tom Naylor for the The Montjoie Fund Awards and Prizes Annie Thwaite (both to Research is grateful best first term essay: to support dissertation to Second Year Renaissance specialism) Students 2013 for the support Swati Venkatraman Iyer research: Hollie Chung Cohort 2013 provided by the (Asian specialism) (Renaissance specialism) 175 Scholarship: following: for her essay entitled and Tania Messell Best Dissertation: Scholarships Chiara Barbieri ‘Gandhi’s Khadi: Uncover- (Modern specialism) Priya Khanchandani 2013–2015 AHRC ing a Counter-Narrative’ and Miranda Clow AHRC CDP Doctoral and Sophie Cope (Ren- Bard Exchange The Friends of V&A Award: Maria Basil Taylor aissance specialism) for (with the Bard Graduate Distinctions for Scholarship: Alessandra Chessa Memorial Prize her essay entitled ‘A Late Center: Decorative Arts, Dissertations: Zara Arshad Clive Wainwright Medieval Cameo Ring’ Design History, Material Carys Bailey, Miranda (Asian specialism) Memorial Prize Culture, New York): Clow, Emily Dunn, The Clive Wainwright Francesca Kubicki Mariah Nelson, The Oliver Ford Trust Friends of the V&A Memorial Prize for best (Modern specialism) Priya Khanchandani Scholarship: overall performance Elizabeth Adams American Friends in the first year: V&A Travel Awards to (Modern specialsm) of the V&A Dorothy Armstrong support research: Emily Scholarships Anthony Gardner Fund (Asian specialism) Aleev-Snow, Georgia 2012–2014 The Sylvia Lennie and Georgia Cherry Cherry, Steffi Duarte, England Fund: Gillian Naylor Essay (Modern specialism) Charlotte Flint, Elodie The Friends of the V&A Dario Zorza Prize in Memory Mallett, Zenia Malmer, Scholarship: (Renaissance specialism) of Tom Naylor The Anthony Gardner Clementine Power, Elodie Mallett and Travel Fund for the Jeremy (Nate) Schulman, Everton da Silva Barreiro Renaissance and Early Montjoie Fund Asian Specialism: Everton da Silva Barreiro (both Modern Modern Award: Oliver Ford Trust Dorothy Armstrong, and Caterina Tiezzi specialism) Stephanie Aspin Charlotte D’Eufemia, (all Modern specialism); (Renaissance specialism) Pasold Foundation Lani McGuinness, Sophie Cope, Luisa The American Friends Violet Pakzad, Swati Coscarelli and Annie of the V&A Scholarship: V&A Fashion History Sylvia Lennie Venkatraman Iyer Thwaite (all Renaissance Jeremy (Nate) Schulman Scholarship: Lupt Utama England Fund and Thomas Wareham specialism) (Modern specialism) (Asian specialism)
76 77 Credits
Editor Jan Sibthorpe [email protected]
For information regarding the research discussed in this bulletin, or for information about the V&A/RCA History of Design Postgraduate Programme please contact Katrina Royal or Matthew Maslin. [email protected] [email protected]
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Front and back covers and interior section title pages designed by Double Atelier. All V&A objects/images depicted on the front and back covers and interior section pages are courtesy of the V&A, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Other images depicted are used with the implicit permission of the contributors to this bulletin in accordance with the relevant copyrights and permissions.