In her role as co-leader of University of Brighton’s Centre for Design History’s Graphic Design Histories strand, Harriet Atkinson has co-curated a series of four ‘In Conversation’ events, to be held online in autumn 2020. These events will showcase four recent publications by fellow Centre for Design History members: on Thursday 12 November 2020 Tim Satterthwaite, author of Modernist Magazines and the Social Ideal will be in conversation with Kim Sichel (Boston) and Jeremy Aynsley (Brighton), chaired by Harriet. On Thursday 19 November 2020 Damon Taylor, author of Moving Objects: A Cultural History of Emotive Design will be in conversation with Deborah Sugg Ryan (Portsmouth), chaired by Annebella Pollen (Brighton). On Wednesday 25 November 2020 Zeina Maasri author of Cosmopolitan Radicalism: Visual Politics of Beirut’s Global Sixties will be in conversation with Hala Auji (American University of Beirut) and Louise Purbrick (Brighton), chaired by Jeremy Aynsley (Brighton). Lastly, on Wednesday 9 December 2020 Ceren Ozpinar and Mary Kelly (University College Cork) will be in conversation about their co-edited book Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today, chaired by Megha Rajguru (Brighton).

Harriet is also co-convening the Exhibitions Histories Reading Group during this academic year alongside Brighton PhD students Kate Guy and Andrea Potts. Over five meetings we will discuss approaches to using interviews with exhibition makers; how to interrogate exhibitions whose context and/or content is fraught; how far exhibitions allow us to understand a historical moment; and how far exhibitions can shape, mediate or control the experience of spectators past and present.