AHRC10: Curating the Nation
Our great national collections document a vast wealth of information and experience – from our daily lives to the most significant world events. They are as integral to our lives as individuals as they are to our national life and as vital to our future as they are to understanding our past.
With an introduction from its Director, Neil MacGregor, the British Museum will host a debate on ‘Curating the Nation’, the inaugural debate in the AHRC Anniversary Debates exploring ‘The Way We Live Now’. How do our great national collections continue to secure access to national collections for future generations? What is the role of the national institution in a global world? How should we capture new kinds of gallery interventions such as live performance? How can we meet the expectations of diverse audiences and involve them in curating? And how should these cultural institutions respond to regional identities within the UK?
These are just some of the questions that this debate will address. The panel will include Dr Nick Merriman, Dr Richard Price, Rebecca Bailey and Kieran Long.
This debate is a collaboration between the AHRC, the British Museum, the Imperial War Museums and all the Independent Research Organisations.
What type of pieces would you associate with the Victoria & Albert Museum. William Morris prints and marble busts, perhaps? Well, how about a 3D printed gun? Or electronic cigarettes? Or Katy Perry false eyelashes?
“There is a degree of objectivity in what the V&A aspires to – we represent a neutral civic space,” claims Long.
“I hope [Rapid Response] will be a freeing experience for people to think about the modern world in a different way. If we can achieve that, I am happy, even if an object turns out not to be the future of technology.”
"There is without doubt institutional prejudice in the furniture industry"
Opinion: there's no excuse for excluding women from the design conversation in Milan, says Kieran Long who offers a ready-made Rolodex for a fairer male/female split.
This column is intended as a service to design, and to address a practical problem that is in acute focus during Milan furniture fair week. The problem is the shocking lack of women designers who are allowed to participate in product and furniture design, either as designers or voices in the discussion about the field.
Kieran Long provides us with a list of established and upcoming female designers while pointing out the gender gap in product design.
Click the image for the full lists and article on dezeen.
The V&A has acquired two Liberator prototypes, one disassembled gun and a number of archive items to enhance its collection of 3D printed objects and represent a turning point in debates around digital manufacturing. The 3D-printed guns developed and successfully fired by Texan law student Cody Wilson has sparked intense debate and upended discussions about the benefits of new manufacturing technologies and the unregulated sharing of designs online.
The Liberator, which fires .380-calibre bullets, comprises 15 printable plastic components and a single metal nail as a firing pin, which appears to be too small to trigger metal detector systems. Once all 15 components of The Liberator have been printed, they fit together. Mr Wilson hopes to make the gun printable by a “RepRap” 3D printer, which consumers can buy for less than $1,000 (£644).
Since the Liberator was first created and demonstrated in May, a video of Wilson successfully test firing the gun at a target has received more than 3.5 million views.
Wilson's company, Denfense Distributed, created designs for guns and gun components that can be downloaded by anyone anywhere in the world and printed out on a 3D printer. Incidentally, the original prototypes did not arrive at the museum in time for London Design Festival, so the museum printed out a copy in London based on Wilson's blueprints.
Kieran Long, who is senior curator of contemporary architecture, design and digital at the V&A and was heavily involved in acquiring the gun speaks about the museum's addition...
I'm really passionate about this acquisition.. It has caused a lot of fuss in the press, that the V&A would acquire something like this. But what I've been pleased about is that most people have seen it not as something deliberately shocking but as a really good signpost to where manufacturing might be going and the implications of new technology."
Wilson told Forbes magazine that he is happy to see his 3D-printed gun recognised by the museum as the incendiary political symbol he’s always intended it to be.
“I don’t see it as an art project, but it has an artistic sensibility about it,” he said. “It’s a kind of demonstration, proof of the direction of of our technical future.”
The gun was displayed alongside a homemade toaster, a pair of 'ear chairs', a series of vessels made of natural polymers, and a chest of drawers made from a combination of computer controlled routing machines and hand carving techniques.
“We are thrilled that in its third year, the Design Fund to Benefit the V&A has continued to enable the acquisition of such meaningful works for the Museum. With 17 exceptional contemporary design projects now acquired through the collective generosity of the Fund's donors, a legacy is being built to represent the leading trends in design and society of today." Yana Peel, Founder of the Design Fund, which funded the acquistion of these pieces.
The gun is currently on display as part of the London Design Festival, which runs until 22 September.
