The new gallery Design 1900-Now at the Victoria and Albert Museum investigates how designed objects reflect society, showing design from the last 120 years.
Rather than looking at the design canon, telling a chronological history of design through a series of stylistic movements, Design 1900-Now shows design from the last 120 years through the lens of six themes: automation and labour, housing and living, crisis and conflict, consumption and identity, sustainability and subversion and data and communication.
To reflect on the new gallery and its content this Symposium will focus on some of the pieces displayed in the gallery, delving deeper into their narratives of production and consumption. Corinna Gardner and Johanna Agerman Ross, organisers of this Symposium and the lead curators of the Design 1900-Now Gallery at the V&A, will introduce the day by discussing the curatorial narrative and conception of the space. Following this a number of speakers will talk around specific objects in the display, reflecting on some of the themes in the gallery.