[Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft: With collections

Welcome to the fourth conversation about contemporary curatorial practice operating in relation to Design and Craft!

This series of events, inviting Swedish and international curators and other cultural producers, presents and discusses various aspects of curating in relation to these fields. Through a series of examples, different approaches, contexts, methods, effects and results are discussed, highlighting diverse perspectives and experiences.

Participants: Carlos Mínguez Carrasco and Johanna Agerman Ross. Introduction and moderation by Magnus Ericson and Christina Zetterlund.

Courtesy of ArkDes. Photo: Marco Cappelletti

ArkDes Collection exhibition, 2024.

Design and craft practices are in transition and today often operate within an expanded context where the creation of objects also includes a commitment to social, political and historical issues. These are dynamic practices that involve many different individuals and social groups, acting outside the traditional institutional frameworks and often in relation to specific places and contexts.

In this seminar we will talk about two examples of recently opened exhibitions: ArkDes Collection at ArkDes in Stockholm and Design Stories at Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg. Together with curators Johanna Agerman Ross and Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, we discuss the role of the institutions and how they write history through their collections. What and who gets to be part of shaping this history? How is a dialogue created in relation to contemporary issues, contexts and conditions? What role does learning play in shaping these exhibitions?

Carlos Mínguez Carrasco is Chief Curator at ArkDes – Swedish National Centre for Architecture and Design. At ArkDes he has curated the exhibitions Flying Panels (2019, in-house), Kiruna Forever (2020), and Girjegumpi: The Sámi Architecture Library by Joar Nango and collaborators, at the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. From 2021 to 2024 he has led the new program of exhibitions at ArkDes, re-open in September 2024, including the conceptualization of ArkDes collection display, rotations, and research.

Johanna Agenman Ross is the Conran Foundation Chief Curator at the Design Museum in London where she oversees the exhibition programme. She was previously curator of twentieth century and contemporary furniture and product design at the V&A where she co-curated the new permanent gallery Design 1900 – Now and the internationally touring exhibition Plastic: Remaking Our World.  While at the V&A she also launched the ten-year research project Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, focused on design and the climate emergency. She is the curator of Design Stories, at Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, a new permanent exhibition that opened in autumn 2024.

Christina Zetterlund is Craft and Design historian active as independent curator as well as educator and researcher at the Department of Design, Linnaeus University. Magnus Ericson is Head of Applied Arts, IASPIS and a curator and educator working across Design, Architecture, urbanism, and Art.

[Re-]Thinking Curating Design and Craft is a series of conversations presented by IASPIS, developed and implemented as a collaboration between Christina Zetterlund and Magnus Ericson.