3.6 The Changing Role of Education

shift towards integrated programming and more process-based activities in curatorial practice, discussed in Chapter 2 (2.2).

The establishment of annual exhibitions such as Designs of the Year and Designers in Residence represent a perceptible shift in the way that the Design Museum communicates design to its audience. It reflects a broader shift more generally as museums find ways to engage more directly with their audiences. The exhibitions bring the designer into the museum and make the design process more explicit. As Helen Charman, former Director of Learning and Research at the museum, has noted, they take the visitor behind the surface to explore the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of design, rather than the ‘who’, and design’s impact in shaping a complex world.356

3.6 The Changing Role of Education

In 2011 the Design Museum mission statement changes to reflect the changing preoccupations of the museum:-

“The Design Museum provides a critical insight into the forces driving change in today’s world”357

The mission statement represents a radical shift in focus for the museum. This is evidenced by addressing new subject areas in the exhibition programme guest curated by leading design practitioners. Curated by Susan Kohn, a metalworker and jewellery designer, Unexpected Pleasures: The art and design of contemporary jewellery (5 December 2012 - 3 March 2013) showcased designers who have challenged the conventional understanding of jewellery design. The exhibition, for the first time, brought contemporary craft into the exhibition programme, a subject that had been largely ignored by the museum.

Again in 2013, the Design Museum explored new territory with the emerging discipline of critical or speculative design. United Micro Kingdoms: A design fiction (30 January 2012 - 28 April 2013) examined a

356

Helen Charman in foreword to Gareth Williams, Design: An essential introduction, London: Goodman Fiell, 2015: 7.

357 Design Museum Bulletin, October 2012 - March 2013, Personal Archive.

series of speculative futures, showcasing the work of designers and educators Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. Dunne and Raby who had established the Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Art. Their work weaves speculative narratives around objects and designs that extrapolate current trends and offer witty critical commentaries on contemporary culture. Design critic, Alice Twemlow has described their work as positioned at the intersections of art and design and of industry and academia which, she argues, can make their work challenging territory for a museum.358

The Design Museum exhibition, curated by Dunne and Raby, explored the future interface between science, technology and design. It imagined an alternative version of England governed by four extreme lifestyle tribes. The designers devolved the country into four new counties, each conceived as an experimental zone with its own form of governance, economy and lifestyle. Visitors were encouraged to decide which tribe they might want to align themselves with; a Digitarian, driven by a blind faith in technology to join a world where tagging, tracking and total surveillance reign supreme or a Bioliberal in the rural southwest, producing their own energy, growing their own products and driving a farting biogas vehicle. These fantastical worlds were depicted through models and props, arranged on a central table in the exhibition like fragments of evidence from alternative societies. The objects, which ranged from model vehicles to slices of landscape, provided intriguing glimpses into this parallel universe and served as props as a catalyst for the visitor's imagination.” As a review of the exhibition noted, “By suspending reality for a moment and indulging in speculation, with a very English sense of humour, United Micro Kingdoms provides the very lens we need to make our

358

Alice Twemlow, Sifting the Trash: A history of design criticism, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2017: 226.

contemporary social, political and environmental predicament all the more clear. It is beautiful, funny and clever and may just change the way you look at the world.”359

Fig. 41: United Micro Kingdoms: A design fiction at the Design Museum, 2012. Curated by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

Dunne and Raby’s belief that design can be a tool to create not only objects but ideas can be seen to support the Design Museum’s aim to provide critical insights into design’s social impact. This shift was also reflected in the museum’s learning programme. Helen Charman, a former Director of Learning and Research at the museum, explains that the programmes were developed to teach design literacy through experiential and contextual approaches which connect learners with multidisciplinary and international designers, design practices and the material culture of design. The programmes were also conceived to promote a critical and reflective approach to individual responsibility both as producer and

359

Oliver Wainwright, ‘Are nuclear trains and cars made of skin the future of travel?, The Guardian, 30 April 2013. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/apr/30/united-micro-kingdoms-design-museum (Accessed 13.07.17).

consumer “in a world groaning under the weight of stuff.”360 As a result of this shift in focus, the learning programme experienced a significant expansion with new programmes created for schools, colleges and further education, in addition to kids activities and weekend workshops. The new programmes moved away from the traditional object handling workshops to activities that brought students closer to design practice and the world of the design studio.

In 2010 the museum launched a major flagship learning project. Design Ventura is an opportunity for students to develop design thinking, creativity, business capabilities and employability skills. The project was launched in partnership with Deutsche Bank, as part of the bank’s youth engagement programme, Born to Be, and over 47,000 students in 700 schools have participated. Teachers are offered training and resources to develop their own professional practice and to run the project in school with the support of design and business industry experts. Students, working in teams, are asked to consider the whole process of design, from initial ideas, manufacturing and budgets through to marketing and branding. The top ten teams are invited to a pitching event at the Design Museum. The winning team go on to work with a professional design team to develop their idea and see it on sale in the Design Museum Shop.361

The project was officially recognised when Catherine Ritman-Smith, a former Learning Producer at the museum and initiator of the project, won the Design Skills category at the 2018 Creative and Cultural Skills Awards which celebrate outstanding commitment to skills development in the creative industries.362 As a learning programme, Design Ventura reinforces the connection between critical thinking, design process and practice. It also reflects the close relationships between design, industry and

360

Helen Charman in Foreword to Gareth Williams, Design: An essential introduction, London: Goodman Fiell, 2015: 7.

361

Design Museum - Design Ventura. Available at: https://ventura.designmuseum.org (Accessed 15.07.18).

362

Creative and Cultural Skills Awards. Available at: https://ccskills.org.uk/supporters/ awards. (Accessed 15.07.18).