News | University of Brighton Design Archives

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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…

A black and white photograph showing The Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Burnham on Crouch, 1931. Taken from the Joseph Emberton Archive housed at the University of Brighton Design Archives.

Joseph Emberton: the architecture of display

The Joseph Emberton Archive has been part of the University of Brighton Design Archives since 2002. This exhibition for Pallant House, curated by Professor Catherine Moriarty and Design Archives Archivist and Research Fellow, Sue Breakell, showcases items from the collection alongside loans from the RIBA Library to explore the buildings of this significant twentieth-century architect. In…

An image showing a font with Japanese text with some English names.

Design Archives in Japan

The Design Archives were represented at a symposium on design resources and research organized by the Design History Workshop Japan. At the invitation of Professor Iguchi Toshino of Saitama University, the work of the University of Brighton Design Archives was presented alongside that of the Musashino Art University Design Archives; the Tanaka Ikko Archive at…

A black and white photographs showing a God Save The Queen paper lantern. Taken from the Design Council Archive housed at the University of Brighton Design Archives.

Curating the past: the monument, the archive and the database

Catherine Moriarty, Professor of Art and Design History presents her inaugural lecture. How the past is represented in the present has always been central to many branches of the humanities. This lecture explores a number of the frameworks within which the past is situated in the present through consideration of particular ‘sites of memory’ with…

A colour photograph showing a person's hands holding an iPad and an iPhone

Design Archives win AHRC award

Developing a critical position on digital environments and digital content, and considering what this means for researchers, is central to the work of the university’s Design Archives. A successful bid in the latest round of AHRC Digital Transformation awards ensures the university remains in a key position in this area of debate. As Principal Investigator,…

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