Symposium The Design of History and the History of Design


London College of Communication
15 September, 2025



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SpeakerS and Abstracts:

Huda Almazroua
Alberto Atalla Filho
Russ Bestley
Kevin Biderman
Silvia Bombardini
David Cross
Dora Souza Dias
Sam Gathercole
Ian Horton and Ian Hague
Jennifer Hankin
Zarna Hart
John-Patrick Hartnett
Fenella Hitchcock
Abbie Vickress and Sakis Kyratzis
Christopher Lacy
Timothy Miller
Danah Nassief
Jesse O’Neill
Nina O’Reilly
Patrick O’Shea
David Preston
Cheryl Roberts
Rebecca Ross
Antoin Sharkey
Andrew Slatter
Kate Trant
Vanessa Vanden Berghe
Judy Willcocks
Christin Yu



A symposium for UAL’s Design History research community


The Design of History and the History of Design is a one-day symposium that maps research into, through or at the boundaries of design history at UAL. While design history may underpin our teaching across different disciplines, research in design history across UAL is somewhat hidden. This symposium aims to share and make visible the work of researchers (staff and students) at all career stages across all UAL colleges.

Exploring the intersections of historical narrative and design practice, it examines how history is constructed, represented, and mediated through design, and how the discipline of design itself is shaped by its evolving historiography.

The symposium will serve as the starting point for a Design History Network at UAL, bringing together researchers from across the university. It also lays the foundation for a welcoming research community in design history, with potential for ongoing events, collaboration, publications, and curriculum development.

If you have any questions or would like to be involved in future activities, please get in touch with the convenors:

Rujana Rebernjak
r.rebernjak@lcc.arts.ac.ukTai Cossich
t.cossich@lcc.arts.ac.uk
Please also sign up for the UAL Design Histories Newsletter




    Abbie Vickress and Sakis Kyratzis 

    The Curiosity Cabinet as a Contemporary Exhibition Design Practice: Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen as a decolonial museum typology


    Newly refurbished museums in countries active in colonialism—such as the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam—are returning to the exhibition design strategy of the curiosity cabinet. These somewhat subtle but powerful strategies include designing for full visibility of collections using vistas, glass cabinets, displays or windows, and open access storage rooms and digital databases; strategies in both the exhibition design and the architecture of the building. This paper explores the possibilities offered by such strategies as forms of decolonial practice.  

    We argue that, in the case of Boijmans Depot, the use of curatorial and exhibition design systems based on efficiency are to be ‘viewed’ as part of the collection, encouraging a more active decoding from a viewer. An exhibition design strategy with no apparent human to put together objects and notes, and by simply displaying objects on shelves that can be the object of both empathy and examination by the visitor, suggests the responsibility of the curation (and consequently of the collection) is shifted to the viewer, who is now responsible for the narrative(s) being generated.  

    The chapter also examines the relationship the building architecture has to this phenomenon, unpacking its role in shifting narrative construction and creating a different signifier of wealth: cultural wealth. This element is explored in comparison with the newly opened V&A East Storehouse. The paper explores and questions the role that theatricality in spatial design plays on the user's relationship with the objects and their provenance. 

    Rather than reparation work, this type of exhibition design aims decoloniality by moving the narrative responsibility to the audience through a synthesis of materials, structures, and technologies. This paper unpacks both the logistics and ethics surrounding this fluid exhibition design practice, using the Museums Association’s (n.d.) decolonising principles. 



    — Abbie Vickress


    Abbie Vickress is a graphic designer, researcher and facilitator exploring knowledge generation and distribution in public engagement and cultural spaces. This critical approach manifests through printed design, exhibition design, curation, writing and facilitation of workshops and events. Abbie teaches and guest lectures widely at HE undergraduate and postgraduate level, and with museum learning departments. She is currently undertaking a Technē AHRC funded PhD in Pluralist Exhibition Design Methods: Anti-colonial graphic design in British ethnographic museums at Central Saint Martins UAL.

    — Sakis Kyratzis

    Dr Sakis Kyratzis is currently Year 1 Leader on the BA Graphic Design Communication at Chelsea College of Arts. In parallel to his experience in academia, Sakis has worked for a number of years as a Visual Communications Manager at the architecture practice Simpson Haugh. As a freelance designer, he has worked mainly in the cultural sector. His clients have included theatre directors and designers, artists, choreographers, photographers, jewellers, charities and universities. His research interests lie in critical design, language, communication, photography, psychogeography, spatial design and sexuality. He has a keen interest in integrating theory and practice.