News | University of Brighton Design Archives

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A colour photograph of Sue Breakell looking at archival boxes at the University of Brighton Design Archives

Design Archives receives further HEFCE endorsement

The University of Brighton Design Archives has retained its place among the country’s top museums, galleries and collections by once again receiving funding from the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE). Funding was first awarded in 2010 and, following a competitive review process that took place in Summer 2016, the archives will continue to receive £60,000…

A collage of three posters from the Design Council Archive, advertising events in the Design Centre. University of Brighton Design Archives.

Design Archives collaborate with Margaret Howell

Partnerships underpin many of the activities of the University of Brighton Design Archives be they AHRC studentships, research council-funded projects or artist residencies. This year, we have teamed up with leading British designer Margaret Howell to support the charity Open City. Curating an annual calendar project, Margaret Howell has previously collaborated with the RIBA and…

Britain Can Make It

To mark the 70th anniversary of the 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition, the Design Archives have launched several initiatives to provoke research and showcase our resources. The original Britain Can Make It catalogue and its supplements have been digitised to increase access to this important research resource. Published by the Council of Industrial Design,…

A colour photograph of a rusty paperclip on an archival piece of paper

‘Materiality and the visual arts archive: matter and meaning’

Booking is open for a symposium on materiality in art and design archives, organised by the Committee for Art and Design Archives (part of ARLIS/UK and Ireland) in collaboration with the University of Brighton Design Archives, taking place on the 23 September. Within the expanding digital environment that encompasses professional and personal experience, ideas of…

A colour photograph of students from the FACP Archive Research meeting the Design Archives on the South Downs in Brighton

Archives collaborate to trace history of Critical Fine Art Practice

In 1971, a group of art students working in photography and film, interested in questions of visual perception and new practices of conceptual art, set up a studio at Brighton School of Art and called it Experimental Studies. By the mid 1970s the students and early conceptual artists who taught in Experimental Studies – including John Hilliard,…

General view of the Design Research Society exhibition at the University of Brighton Gallery. Curated by Dr Lesley Whitworth.

Design Research & Its Participants

Design Research & Its Participants is an invited curatorial intervention in the fiftieth anniversary conference of the Design Research Society, taking place in Brighton 24-27 June. Curated by Dr Lesley Whitworth, Design Archives’ Deputy Curator, the exhibition examines the inter-play of individuals associated with a range of design organisations active in the later twentieth century….

A colour image of a person looking at the Design Archives document library on an iPhone

Displaying documents

To mark the 70th anniversary of the 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition, the original catalogue and its supplements have been scanned to enable wider access to this important research resource. Published by the Council of Industrial Design, the catalogue presents a rich and detailed picture of the design professions and British manufacturing in the…

A colour photograph showing a studio being cleared with papers and a box on top of a map cabinet. King's Road, London, October 2015.

The Production of the Archive

The 2016 Winter Conference of the Institute of Historical Research The Production of the Archive takes place on 29 January. Professor Catherine Moriarty has been invited to take part in the event which considers the agency of both the archivist and the historian. Her presentation The representation of content, context, and connection argues for greater sensibility towards the structures…

A black and white collaged image showing the portraits of Tom Wilson and Leah Armstrong

Professional successes for Design Archives doctoral students

The AHRC collaborative doctoral awards encourage research projects that link academic and non-HE partners. Working with both the Design Museum and the Chartered Society of Designers, the University’s Design Archives were successful in winning two studentships, in 2010 and 2011. We are now delighted to share the progress and career advancement of the students….

A black and white photograph showing beer-pump handles exhibited at the exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1951.

To Hell With Culture?

‘To hell with culture’ is a phrase borrowed from Eric Gill and employed by Herbert Read to open – as well as to entitle – his important essay of 1941 on culture and democracy. It is a theme that will be explored as part of a two-day conference ‘Victorian Futures: Culture and Democracy from the…

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