Designer Maker User
Permanent exhibition for the new Design Museum, whose curatorial approach centred on the question of how museum can raise understanding of today’s designed world amongst both general and specialist audiences.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-20-0000
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Design Museum, South Kensington, London, U.K.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- November
- Year of first exhibition
- 2016
- URL
-
https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/designer-maker-user
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Designer Maker User is the permanent exhibition created for the new Design Museum, following its move to the Grade
II* listed former Commonwealth Institute in South Kensington, London. It includes over 1,000 examples of 20th and 21st century
design. Facilitated by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the exhibition is based on a curatorial concept, themes and detailed interpretation strategy
developed by Charny, whose curatorial research centred on the question of how the Design Museum can raise understanding of today’s designed world amongst both general and specialist audiences.
Opened in 2016, Designer Maker User embodies the key concept of ‘design for the many’. The exhibition’s approach departs from a chronological typology of ‘design classics’, and focuses on how design shapes our world, and is itself shaped by changing contexts. The
exhibition gives the user a prominent status alongside the designer and maker, which manifests in interpretive mechanisms such as a wall of
designed objects nominated by the public.
In his role as the Design Museum’s Lead Content and Interpretation Consultant, Charny’s research involved reviewing the Museum’s
collection strategy, visiting international design museums and galleries, and generating and prototyping new approaches for the display.
Charny worked with the Museum’s Director and Senior Team on developing the vision, mission and programming, and led workshops
with curatorial, communications and learning teams as part of a collaborative research process. Charny consolidated the exhibition
strategy and concept, as well as leading on the consultation the Museum’s design and curatorial teams in the exhibition’s execution.
Designer Maker User, which is free to visit, has become a key component of the Museum’s learning programme, and continues to
drive its curatorial, educational and commercial offers. The exhibition reported higher than projected visitor numbers in the Museum’s
first year in Kensington (780,000 in 2017), and 500,000 visitors in the following year.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
