(De)Constructing Utopia Conference, Sheffield 2nd-3rd May, Full Programme

Tom Cubbin <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.culture.studies.history.slavic
Message-ID <[email protected]>
(DE)CONSTRUCTING UTOPIA: DESIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE FROM THAW TO PERESTROIKA. 
Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, May 2nd–3rd 2014.
Convened by Tom Cubbin and Yulia Karpova.
Email: [email protected]
 
For more information on the workshop, including registration details and a full set of abstracts and speakers biographies, please visit the workshop’s website at deconstructingutopia.wordpress.com

Friday 2nd May
 
0830 – 0945                BREAKFAST (for speakers and chairs only)
 
0945 – 1015                REGISTRATION
 
1015 – 1030                WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
 
1030 – 1250                PANEL 1: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on Socialist Design
 
How did socialist design cultures differ? What were the basic principles that defined ‘socialist design’ in different national contexts? This set of papers combines synoptic study of national design cultures with analysis of specific moments of international exchange in socialist design. Chaired by Grace-Lees Maffei (University of Hertfordshire)
 
1030 – 1055                 Design Theory and Self Management in Socialism: The Yugoslav Case in a Panoramic Survey (Fedja Vukić, University of Zagreb)
 
1055 – 1120                 Building up a Design Culture in the German Democratic Republic: Parallels and Differences to Design in the West (Siegfried Gronert, Bauhaus University, Weimar)
 
1120 – 1145                 “Design for Man and Mankind”: VNIITE hosts ICSID ’75 Moscow (Margareta Tillberg, Stockholm University)
 
1145 – 1210                 Hungarian Design in the light of the Zsennye Workshop: 1978-2014 (András Szilági, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
 
1210 – 1250                 Discussion
 
1250 – 1400                BUFFET LUNCH
 
Lunch is free for speakers and chairs. If those attending would like to join us, please let us know by 25th April and bring £7 on the day. This is to ensure the workshop remains free of charge for as many people as possible.
 
1400 – 1620                PANEL 2: Skill, labour and identity in socialist artistic production
 
Emerging as a new and ambitious profession in the 1960s, socialist design was quite strongly tied to the traditional spheres of decorative art and peasant craft, where labor and skill were often perceived as more meaningful ingredients than novelty and experiment. Is it possible to define more or less clear borders between art, design and craft in the context of socialist production, or, rather, one should focus on their interaction and the benefits it could bring? This panel brings together papers dealing with professional identities in their relation to artistic labor, hierarchies within artistic/design communities, and the role(s) of craft in creating modern environments. Chaired by Susan E. Reid (University of Sheffield)
 
1400 – 1425                 The Afterlife of Suprematism: Malevich’s legacy in Leningrad applied art and design (Yulia Karpova, Central European University, Budapest)
 
1425 – 1450                 History in the Making: Experiment Invalidovna, Prague 1961 (Rebecca Bell, Royal College of Art)
 
1450 – 1515                 Neither a real artist, nor a designer: Art labourers in the Riga Porcelain Factory and output in the Soviet period (Iliana Veinberga – Art Academy of Latvia, Riga)
 
1515 – 1540                 The Creation of a New Professional Identity (Mari Laanemets, Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn)
 
1540 – 1620                 Discussion
 
1620 – 1650                TEA AND COFFEE
 
1650 – 1730                SPECIAL GUEST LECTURE: IRINA KOSTENKO (Moscow, formerly VNIITE)
 
THE DESIGN CENTRE IN MOSCOW DURING THE LATE SOVIET PERIOD.
 
1730 – 1800         WINE
 
1900                    EVENING MEAL AND RECEPTION (SPEAKERS AND CHAIRS ONLY)
 
 
SATURDAY 3rd May
 
0830 – 0945                BREAKFAST (for speakers and chairs only)
 
0945 – 1000                REGISTRATION
 
1000 – 1220                PANEL 3: From projects to environments: postmodern turns in socialist design?
 
If postmodernism is the ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’ how do we interpret the aesthetic strategies of architects and designers during late socialism? While the turn towards environment and critical re-evaluation of past utopian thought have been seen as important elements in the production of the postmodern aesthetic in Western architecture, there has been relatively little discussion of similar strategies in the East. The papers in this panel address the topic from a range of perspectives including the production of theory, paper and cardboard architecture and socialist architects’ engagements outside of the Eastern bloc. (Chair TBC)
 
1000 – 1025                 From Environment to Milieu via Berlin – Marzahn: The urbanism of the in-between in socialist East Germany (Torsten Lange, Institute for history and Theory of Architecture, Zürich)
 
1025 – 1050                 Designing for the Socialist Present? Post-Utopian Practice in Soviet Urban Design of the 1970s (Tom Cubbin, University of Sheffield/Royal College of Art)
 
1050 – 1115                 Deterritorializing Utopia: “Paper Architecture” in Moscow, 1984 (Andres Kurg, Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn)
 
1115 – 1140                  Postmodernism is Almost All Right. Polish Architecture After Socialist Golbalization (Łukas Stanek, University of Manchester)
 
1140 – 1220                 Discussion
 
1220 – 1330                BUFFET LUNCH
 
Lunch is free of charge for speakers and chairs. If those attending would like lunch, please let us know by 25th April and bring £7 on the day. This is to ensure the workshop remains free of charge for as many people as possible.
 
 
 
 
1330 – 1515         PANEL 4: Curating Socialist Design
 
What formats of collecting and exhibiting can most effectively preserve and present the history of socialist design? The 2008 exhibition Cold War Modern. Design 1945−1970 (V&A, curated by David Crowley and Jane Pavitt) presented design as a powerful aspect of Cold War history, echoing the approach to socialist design characteristic of scholarly works of the 2000s. However, there are, presumably, multiple ways for curators to work outside of a cold-war framework, such as introducing local histories or problematizing the commodity as both the object of design quality and site of boring socialist everydayness. The papers in this panel discuss these new curatorial strategies and opportunities.
 
1330 – 1355                 Modernization in the Baltic during the 1960s: (Lolita Jalonskiene, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius)
 
1355 – 1420                 “Soviet Design” – Reflections on Moscow Design Museum’s First Exhibition (Alexandra Sankova, Moscow Design Musuem)
 
1420 ­– 1445                 Things to Use: Design Objects in Everyday History (Andreas Ludwig, Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam)
 
1445 – 1515                 Discussion
 
1515 – 1545                TEA AND COFFEE
 
1545 – 1645                KEYNOTE LECTURE: DAVID CROWLEY (ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART)
 
THE OTHER CHILDREN OF MARX AND COCA-COLA: POP ART AND CINEMA IN EASTERN EUROPE

1645 – 1700                BREAK
 
1700 – 1745                DISCUSSION:
 
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR SOCIALIST DESIGN HISTORY (CHAIRED BY TOM CUBBIN AND YULIA KARPOVA)
 
 
 
 
 
 


----------------------------------------------------------
Tom Cubbin 
Postgraduate Research Student
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies
University of Sheffield

Critical and Historical Studies Visiting Lecturer
Royal College of Art, London
[email protected]
http://tcubbin.wordpress.com/

(De)constructing Utopia Conference on Socialist Design, Sheffield, 2nd-3rd May
http://deconstructingutopia.wordpress.com




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