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




    Zarna Hart
    Not All Trunks Float


    Not All Trunks Float investigates the intersection between print culture and oral histories of and by the Windrush between 1950-2014. It advocates for the greater exploration of the performative and ethereal elements in post-colonial story-telling and history-making, as well as sheds light on the closely tied relationship these cultures have with the role of the (colonial/decolonial) institution and its archive. 

    Drawing on the author’s methodology of object research, site visits, interviews, and inserting herself into the contextual analysis of these materials, it offers a critical reflection on the symbiosis of history-telling/making/archiving and the ways in which the Windrush generation occupied space in the fabrication of their own histories. These techniques are applied to examples of collective knowledge production by the West Indian Student Union and Oral histories of Windrush passengers in the British Library collection. 

    The title of this research is an intentional play on words alluding to the fickle nature of tangible/intangible matters of history, and a comment on the state of the Windrush’s historical evidence: historical products like orality and the memory of the past, though immaterial, floats with the passengers and crystallises their lived experience as something to be consumed. The title similarly acknowledges the recurring fact that there is a massive forgetting and loss of the Windrush’s historical existence, in the form of the 2018 Windrush Scandal for example, and the altogether continuity of colonial systems rejecting the existence of the West Indian. The term ‘Windrush,’ as a result has revolutionised in meaning, foreboding its symbolic relationship with the vessel, and instead referring to an entire generation of the British-Caribbean population. As such, throughout this dissertation, the term is used primarily as an adjective—referring to the historical event of the migration of West Indians, as well as the community of people of that time.



    — Zarna Hart


    Zarna Hart (she/her) is a curator, designer, and educator whose practice explores design theories and practices through an anti-colonial lens, with a focus on archival methods within postcolonial contexts. Her award-winning research, “Not All Trunks Float,” investigates the intersection of print and oral histories within the Caribbean, earning recognition from the Design History Society, the Royal College of Art and the V&A. She currently lectures at Kingston University, University of the Arts London, and University for the Creative Arts, and is an alumnus of the Royal College of Art (MA RCA/V&A History of Design 2022-2023).