Is this it?

Design is said to be in a state of crisis. Artificial intelligence, neoliberal economics, environmental destruction and unstable geopolitics have created a toxic conditions in which to conduct design practice, leading some to predict the ‘end of design’.

From the point of view as historians of design, this might be a good moment to take stock and evaulate methods and approaches.

Do we have the tools necessary to critically examine and respond to these major shifts? Are we adequately able to address the imbalances of power that have propped up the profession of design and been ingrained in the writing of its histories? Are we being as responsible as we need to be in getting our history to reach its audiences? How can we activate history to make it matter? What would this new design history look like?

Speakers:

Leah Armstrong, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Introduction – Design History and its Discontents

Tania Messell, Tutor, HEAD, Geneva
Design in Times of Crisis: From Catastrophic Thinking to Interscalar Responses (1970–1980s)

Kasia Jezowska, Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales
The other things. Design histories beyond capitalism

Anna Talley, Tutor, Edinburgh College of Art
Design in the Digital Technoscape: How Can Design Historians Address New Logic Models Affecting Design?

Paula Arning, Research Assistant, University College Dublin
Reclaiming Modernism: Women at the Intersection of Architecture, Textiles and Fashion

Monica Titton, Senior Scientist, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Untold Histories of Fashion, Crafts, Artisanship, and Style in the Archives of Italy’s Former Colonial Museum in Rome

Stefanie Kitzberger, Senior Scientist, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Absences, Mediality, and the Politics of Reconstruction. On Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Organised and chaired by Leah Armstrong, FWF Elise Richter Senior Postdoctoral Fellow in Design History and Theory / Senior Scientist, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Principle Investigator, FWF V740, Professionalisation and its Discontents: design, 1930–1980