Summary of Thesis Structure

different perspectives on curating exhibitions across the disciplines of architecture, design and fashion, such as Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara (eds.), Curating Architecture and the City (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2009); Adrian George’s manual of curating practice, The Curator’s Handbook: Museums, Commercial Galleries, Independent Spaces (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015); Alex Newson, Eleanor Suggett and Deyan Sudjic, Designer Maker User (Phaidon Press Ltd, 2016) and Annamari Vänskä and Hazel Clark (eds), Fashion Curating: Critical Practice in the Museum and Beyond (London: Bloomsbury Publishing 2018).

Archival research has also provided a fertile source of information relating to the origins of the Design Museum and its subsequent development.61 A review of minutes to Trustee and Curatorial Committee meetings; promotional brochures, policy documents and media reviews located in the Design Museum Archive and the V&A Archive (Boilerhouse Papers) revealed the discussions and ideas informing the establishment of The Boilerhouse Project and its later incarnation as the Design Museum.

It is into this body of scholarly work on museology and curatorial practice, and a perceived gap in literature on the practice of curating contemporary design, that this research is positioned. The thesis aims to contribute to the critical language and debate around design curating practice as examined through the practitioner’s lens.

Summary of Thesis Structure

This PhD submission comprises two parts - The Thesis (Part One) and a Portfolio of Work (Part Two).

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The Design Museum Archive was established in 2011 by Donna Loveday and MA Curating Contemporary Design graduate, Eszter Gero. The archive acts as the principal repository for all written and visual material documenting the history of the Design Museum, policies, programmes and exhibitions, from its beginnings to the present.

Part One comprises four chapters and serves to firmly locate the study in its historical, cultural and contemporary context. The research presented in Chapters 1, 2 and 3 introduces and surveys rapid developments in the field of curatorial practice. Chapters 3 and 4 locate, introduce and discuss my practice-informed research. The chapters may be summarised as follows:-

Chapter 1:

Displaying Designed Objects in Museum and Exhibition Contexts (1800s - 2000) contextualises my investigation by mapping the history of displaying designed objects in museum and exhibition contexts, as a means of identifying the key moments that are pertinent to the development of the design museum and the design exhibition. The research situates the museum as an institution with particular purposes, responsibilities and methods of operation. The emergence of public museums and professional curators in the early twentieth century influenced their political and organisational structures. Of particular relevance to this thesis is the specificity of the discipline of design and its relation to the design museum which emerged in the early twentieth century to become a cultural and operating institution in its own right. The historical, theoretical and cultural discussions that have informed the development of the design museum and design curating are discussed through an analysis of relevant literature and case studies.

Chapter 2:

The Curatorial Turn (1980 - 2018) identifies and analyses the culture around curating since the 1980s and the main discursive trends and broader shifts that have emerged within contemporary curating practice, a period marked by moments when the boundaries constituting the role of the curator and the field in which they operated significantly expanded. It contributes to an understanding of when and why certain issues emerged in relation to broader political, economic, social and technological factors and how these changes impacted on museums and the visitor experience.

I also examine how such shifts influenced the development of curating practice more broadly and the way in which design exhibitions were conceived and presented.

Chapter 3:

The Development of the Design Museum, London (1980 - 2018) brings the research discussed in previous chapters together with a specific focus on the Design Museum, London. It explores the establishment and development of the first Design Museum in the UK, from its beginnings as The Boilerhouse Project in the basement of the V&A, London (1982-1986); its opening as the Design Museum at Shad Thames in south-east London (1989 - 2015) and its latest reincarnation and move to the former Commonwealth Institute, Kensington (2016 -present). The Design Museum is hugely significant to the history and current status of curating design in the UK. The Design Museum also provides the context for the development of my own practice as a design curator and serves to locate the reflection on my practice explored in Chapter 4.

Chapter 4:

This section of the thesis seeks to understand and represent the practice of design curating, through a critical reflection on a specific example of my practice. It examines the Design Museum exhibition, Hello, My Name is Paul Smith (15 November 2013 - 22 June 2014). Adopting the mode of a “reflective practitioner” and by literally ‘unravelling the practice’, I attempt to outline the form of the project, as well as the thinking behind it. Drawing on material produced during the curating process, I discuss the research, ideas, processes, decisions, tensions and compromises that contributed to the exhibition’s final form. The material includes concept documents, design briefs, concept layouts for 3D and 2D Design, final tender drawings, media reviews in response to the exhibition together with images of the exhibition in its final form as presented at the Design Museum.

The intended outcome of this reflective analysis is to “demystify” the process of curating the exhibition and provide an enhanced understanding of one example of curating design in the context of the museum.

The thesis concludes with a summary of the shifts and examples of practice discussed and their implications for the way the practice of design curating and the design curator’s role in museums is understood. In so doing, the research aims to contribute meaningfully to a growing historiography of design curation and to an understanding of the expanding role of the design curator.

Part Two comprises a Portfolio of Work that forms a written, visual and oral record of the research-informed practice undertaken for the case study exhibition. The research material is presented on a CD included alongside the thesis. It is documented in separate sections to reflect the chronology of the exhibition’s execution and to show the progression of the project. The documentation serves to support the reflective practice component of the thesis (Chapter 4) and provide evidence of my approach to curating the exhibition.