Design Histories
Research Hub


The UAL Design Histories Research Network is now officially recognised as a Research Hub based at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. We will set up a dedicated online presence for the hub on Elements, as well as work on building the hub's visibility on the official UAL/LCC website. We hope this will further support our aim to make research in design history visible across UAL.

Open to all across the university, the hub aims to connect those researching, teaching, or practicing at the intersections of design and history.

If you’d like to be more closely involved in organising or shaping upcoming activities, please get in touch with the convenors:


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









Teaching with Archives
Material Entanglements in Design Education

Call for Papers

The Design Histories Research Hub, based at LCC, University of the Arts London, invites contributions for Teaching with Archives, a one-day symposium taking place online on Friday 19 March 2027.



Teaching with Archives: Material Entanglements in Design Education

In “‘The Archive’ is Not an Archives” Michelle Caswell [1] recalls archives on fire,  “books, archival records, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, and journals were burned to a crisp” to insist on the actuality of archives: individual, specific, physical spaces populated by workers, documents, catalogues, budgets, infrastructures, and competing systems of value. Against the tendency within the Humanities to dissolve the archive into a Foucauldian or Derridean abstraction, Caswell argues for attention to the intellectual and practical contributions of archivists and archival studies, and to archives as sites of material encounter, preservation, and power.

This symposium takes Caswell’s provocation to consider how archives are discussed, mobilised, and experienced in design education. In particular, we are interested in how design historical knowledge is examined, constructed and shared in the classroom through an engagement with archives and collections – both physical and digital. In a moment of increasing digitalisation and automation seemingly disrupting design education, this symposium seeks to uncover ways in which a direct, embodied engagement with archival materials - documents, collections, ephemera, records, libraries, oral histories, and institutional repositories - can inform a more nuanced and critical understanding of design practice and its multiple histories. 

Rather than seeking to map references to the archive as a metaphor, methodology, aesthetic strategy, this symposium seeks to document and explore engagements with ‘actually existing archives’ - as Caswell calls them – to question how those encounters might instigate new dialogues and forms of knowledge across design history and practice. 

The symposium invites contributions from design practitioners, historians, educators, researchers, archivists, librarians interested in exploring the role of archives in design education. We are particularly interested in approaches that foreground hands-on encounters with historical materials and reflect on the challenges and possibilities of teaching Design History through archival engagement.


[1] Caswell, Michelle (2023). '‘The Archive’ is Not an Archives: Acknowledging the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies', in Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction [Andrew Prescott, and Alison Wiggins (eds)] Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198829324.013.0002, accessed 23 June 2026.

Possible themes may include, but are not limited to: 

  • Archives and design history pedagogy.
  • Histories of the use of archives in design and design education.
  • Object-based learning and material encounters in design history teaching.
  • Teaching with special collections and institutional archives.
  • Archivists and educators as collaborators.
  • Tacit and embodied knowledge within archives.
  • Oral histories, lived experience, and alternative forms of design knowledge.
  • Archives as sites of critical and speculative design practice.
  • Teaching with archives in relation to sustainability, repair, reuse, and material afterlives.
  • Decolonial and queering approaches to archival practices.
  • Archival absences, silences, gaps, and contested histories (in relation to design).



Dates

Deadline for submissions: 20 November 2026 (1000-word extended abstract).
Notification of outcomes: 18 December 2026.
Symposium: Friday 19 March 2027, 10:00–17:00 GMT.


Venue

Online symposium, via Teams. Hosted by the Design Histories Research Hub.


Submissions

Please submit your extended abstract (1000 words) by Friday 20 November 2026. ◆ ◆ ◆ online submission form

We welcome contributions from within and beyond UAL, from design practitioners, archivists, librarians, educators, researchers, PhD students, and others working across design history, archival practices, pedagogy, and practice-based research.

There will be no fee to attend the symposium.


Format

The symposium will take place online and is currently planned to be structured around a series of moderated panels. Contributors will be invited to give 20-minute presentations, followed by time for discussion and questions. Please note that minor adjustments to presentation length and format may be made once the final programme is confirmed.

Contributors will be asked to share their slide presentations in advance of the symposium. With contributor’s consent, these materials may be made available via the UAL Design Histories Research Network’s website following the event. 


Programme committee

Dr Cheryl Roberts
Dr Judy Willcocks
Dr Vanessa Vanden Berghe 
Dr Rujana Rebernjak
Dr Tai Cossich