A British Academy-supported conference organized by the Design Archives’ Curator Catherine Moriarty with Gillian Whiteley of Loughborough University, this event brought together a range of scholars to discuss the relationship between sculpture and design. It explored the connections between sculpture and design and sculptors and designers, considering aspects of education, authorship, making and manufacture, display, consumption and critical reception.

The rationale was described as follows:
The relationship between sculpture and design offers a potentially rich, relatively unexplored, field for interdisciplinary attention. Throughout the twentieth century and into the present, sculptural values and design imperatives have shifted. While artists have explored the sculptural resonances of industrial and three-dimensional design, so designers have appropriated the forms, language and discourse of sculpture. Sculpture has colonised domestic, industrial and social space whereas industrial design and functional objects now occupy the gallery. From the earliest ready-mades to contemporary multiples, the mass-produced has found itself re-located, re-displayed and re-interpreted.

The keynote address was presented by Barbara Bloemink, Curatorial Director, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York, and curator of the exhibition Design –ART Functional Objects from Donald Judd to Rachel Whiteread  September 10, 2004 – Feb 27, 2005.
http://cooperhewitt.org/EXHIBITIONS/dina/index.asp

Other speakers included Jonathan Woodham (University of Brighton); Penelope Curtis (Henry Moore Institute); Marian Arnold (Loughborough University School of Art and Design); Cheryl Buckley (University of Northumbria at Newcastle); Robert Burstow (University of Derby) and Craig Martin (Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College).

For a complete list of speakers and abstracts download the programme.