Curating Design: Between Word and World
Event date
- 3 July 2026
Celebrating 25 years of MA Curating Contemporary Design, join an international network of curators, designers and researchers to challenge and rethink curatorial practice today.
Convened by MA Curating Contemporary Design in partnership with the Design Museum
About the conference
Unpacking design curation as a practice of care, collaboration and stewardship, the conference expands beyond objects of study to engage with wider systems, structures and processes that are defining how we inhabit our world now and in the future.
MA Curating Contemporary Design was established in 2001 as a pioneering collaboration between Kingston University and the Design Museum, London. Curating Design: Between Word and World has been developed with an alumni research group to bring together an international, cross-disciplinary group of curators, designers and researchers for a day of exchange and debate on the evolving practice of the design curator.
Structured around a linguistic framework, moving from noun to adjective to verb, the conference explores design curation as a form of language reflecting on and responding to the world around us, shaped by and through design. It moves away from defining the role and functions of the curator towards examining the ethical qualities required of contemporary curatorial practice and exploring the methods and formats through which curating operates.
Positioned as a practice of commoning, the conference will question what design curating represents as a discipline, practice and pedagogy today. It will create a space in which to share ideas and to imagine expanded, inclusive, equitable, pluralistic and dynamic curatorial futures together.
Speakers
The keynote will be given by Marina Otero Verzier. Speakers include Larry Botchway, Judith Clark, José Délano, Frederico Duarte, Stella Fong, Catherine Ince, Natalie Kane, Torange Khonsari, Joseph Kohlmaier, Hilary Powell, Vera Sacchetti, and Fleur Watson.
