Dear Deborah (and others on the list),
I'm not sure about this, but you seem to assume that others
who are on the JISC list are going to agree with your point.
Yrs,
Kevin Davies
----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Sugg Ryan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 7:19 PM
Subject: Constance Spry & the Design Museum
> I've sent the following letter to The Guardian in response to the
extraordinary attacks on the
> Design Museum in the last week:
>
> "There seems to be an unspoken gender politics behind the furore about the
Constance Spry
> exhibition at the Design Museum. Perhaps what Terence Conran, James Dyson
& Stephen Bailey
> perceive is a feminisation (or should that be emasculation?) of the Design
Museum in its recent
> exhibitions on fashion and the domestic sphere. Their notions of 'good'
design are predicated on
> out-dated paternalistic, modernist, middle-class notions of taste,
favouring industrial design.
>
> Whilst I don't like the way in which the Spry exhibition has been
realised - it is woefully lacking in
> context and consequently misrepresents Spry - I want to defend the Design
Museum's decision to
> mount it. Many of us who research and teach design history are interested
in the question 'what is
> design'? Together with a growing number of young designers, we have been
exploring the
> boundaries between professional and amateur design, consumption practices
and popular taste.
> And, yes, this even includes flowers... and the Habitat chicken brick.
>
> Furthermore, in the personal attacks on Alice Rawsthorn, I am reminded of
the vilification of
> Elizabeth Esteve-Coll at the V&A, another female museum director."
>
>
> These are important issues that we need to debate within the discipline.
And it would be good to
> use the JISCmail list for discussion as well as announcements!
>
> Deborah
>
> Dr Deborah Sugg Ryan
> Loughborough University School of Art & Design
> Epinal Way
> Loughbrough
> Leics LE11 3TU
> +44 (0)1509 557417
> [log in to unmask]
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