The role of women in the history of design has been significant yet often unsung. Therefore, SWPS University has partnered with the National Museum in Gdańsk on a two-year project “Looking Through Objects” that will showcase careers and designs of Polish, Estonian, and British women designers. The project is financed by the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport as part of the “Kultura Inspirująca” (Inspiring Culture) program, while the curators include Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka, Ph.D., Dean of SWPS Unviersity’s Faculty of Design in Warsaw and Program Director of SWPS University’s School of Form, Gian Luca Amadei, Ph.D., author, researcher, and lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London, and Dario Lombardi, an independent photographer from Vienna.
Transformation of design
The main goal of the “Looking Through Objects” project is to showcase Polish female designers and to present their best designs to the world-wide audience. Through various objects, experiences, and design approaches, the curators want to depict the socio-economic transformation that has occurred on the design market over the last decade.
The project is aligned with the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Polish women gaining voting rights (1921-2021) and the centenary of the Polish-Estonian diplomatic relations.
The “Looking Through Objects” project will include a temporary exhibition highlighting designs of Polish women designers as well as seminars and educational events.
Female Perspective
The first event, an online seminar “Design Stories”, has been planned for the end of November 2021. The goal of the seminar is to expand the context of the project to include the perspective of female designers and researchers from Estonia, Great Britain, and Polish designers working mostly abroad. The seminar will focus on the transformation that has occurred over the last 10 years in the world of design, and on personal experiences and ideas of the designers, which will be presented in the form of interviews.
International Partnership
The project has been organized thanks to a collaboration between the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tallinn, Estonia, the National Museum in Gdańsk, and SWPS University. The strategic partner of the project is the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (Eesti Tarbekunsti-ja Disainimuuseum) in Tallinn, which will present the “Looking Through Objects” exhibition in mid-2022.
The curators of the project include: Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka, Ph.D., curator, design critic, Dean of the Faculty of Design in Warsaw,and Program Director of SWPS University’s School of Form, Gian Luca Amadei, Ph.D., author, researcher, and lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London and Dario Lombardi, an independent photographer from Vienna.
More information about the project »
Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka, Ph.D. – is a design curator and critic She is active in several design-related fields. As a curator, she develops and organizes exhibitions and various art programs. As a journalist and design critic, she writes about design and comments on different phenomena and observes trends. She is a renowned promoter of young designers from Poland and other countries around the world. She is interested in design as a discipline striding both culture and economy. Dr. Jacobson-Cielecka is a co-author of a unique design teaching program at SWPS University’s School of Form. She curated numerous exhibitions of Polish design, presented in Europe and Asia. She is a member of program committees and juries of many Polish and international festivals. Full bio »
Gian Luca Amadei, Ph.D. – is an independent academic researcher, curator and internationally recognised design and architectural journalist. His research interests intersect between design, architecture, urban planning, sociology and cultural context. Gian Luca is an advocate of life-long learning and currently a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London, on the Information Experience Design MA at the School of Communication. He is also the author of the following books: Discovering Women in Polish Design (Adam Mickiewicz Institute 2009) and Victorian Cemeteries and the Suburbs of London (Routledge 2022).
Dario Lombardi – graduated with a Master’s degree in Photography from the Istituto Superiore di Fotografia e Comunicazione Integrata in Rome. He works as a freelance photographer in Vienna. Dario specializes in portrait photography, including theatre, dance and fashion. Dario is the author of the portraits appearing in the book Discovering Women in Polish Design by Gian Luca Amadei.
"Looking Through Objects" is a two-year project, financed by the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport as part of the “Kultura Inspirująca” (Inspiring Culture) program.
Organizers
Co-organizer
Strategic Partner
Partners