Design Collection Displays Open Call Deadline July 29

Open Call for Papers and Save the Date

Design Collection Displays Reassessed: ICOM-DESIGN International Symposium

28 – 30 October 2025

and Post-Symposium 31 October – 1 November at the National Museum, Oslo

Invitation to submit unpublished proposals

The Design Collection Displays Reassessed symposium will discuss collection displays as sites of knowledge exchange and active engagement. From a traditionally linear, encyclopedic display, to today’s more narrative approaches, in the last decades, historical and contemporary displays of decorative arts and design have changed dramatically, in response to a variety of forces, including reassessments of institutional priorities, foregrounding of audiences, and the inclusion of different voices. The symposium will interrogate how design objects and interiors are displayed, discussed and interpreted, and for whom. What does curating these kinds of collection displays represent and mean today? And how might this practice look in the future? What new museological approaches are needed?

The new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, a merger of four previously independent museums, is a fitting venue for a symposium with this theme. It opened its new, large-scale collection display in 2022, including decorative arts, design, interiors, fashion and studio crafts from the 1100s to the present. This permanent collection reinstallation, the first since 2005, provided an opportunity to re-think the curation of the design and decorative arts display. Some of the questions raised in the curatorial process at the National Museum have inspired and will inform this symposium, including:

How might we curate critically meaningful displays that communicate the distinctiveness of design objects and which reach beyond heroization of the maker?
What are the specific challenges of exhibiting historic decorative arts for contemporary audiences, and how might we meet those challenges?
How do historic and contemporary objects interact in collection displays, if at all?
Museum collections have traditionally often reinforced hegemonic and dominant histories. How might collection displays instead convey more inclusive and nuanced narratives?
How might collection displays be more accessible to new and diverse audiences?
How might we use the collection display to address societal and global issues?
How might a design object that is interactive – physically and digitally – have its own presence and be successfully displayed within a collection installation?
How do collection displays change within house museums?

We welcome submissions that touch on any of the questions above, as well as explorations that go beyond these topics. We also invite contributions that look towards possible futures of collection displays.

We look forward to meeting in person to discuss and debate an ever-changing field – a conversation between scholars and practitioners across borders, institutions and disciplines.

An international anthology based on the conference presentations is planned.

Keynote Speakers

• Corinna Gardner, Senior Curator, Design and Digital, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

• Dr Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Curator of Furniture and Woodwork, MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna

• Marco Magni, founder and chief architect, and Maria Cristina Rizzello, architect and partner, Guicciardini & Magni Architetti, Florence

• Dr Leena Svinhufvud, Leading Researcher, Architecture & Design Museum, Helsinki

For keynote speaker presentations, please see below.

Please submit via email an abstract of 300-400 words for a 20 minute presentation, including a title and a 50-word biography to: denise.hagstroemer@nasjonalmuseet.no

All selected speakers must be ICOM members at the time of the symposium.

Deadline: 29 July

Proposals will be peer reviewed.

Notification: 5 August

For symposium enquiries, please email:
denise.hagstroemer@nasjonalmuseet.no

About ICOM-DESIGN (formerly ICOM-ICDAD)

The ICOM International Committee for Decorative Arts and Design – ICOM DESIGN – is devoted to decorative arts and design collections preserved within encyclopedic museums, decorative arts & design museums and related collections conserved in historic houses and monuments, castles and other related sites.

ICOM DESIGN was created in 2000, resulting from the division of the former International Committee for Applied Arts (ICAA) into two committees: ICDAD and DEMHIST. More than 500 members, individual and institutional, are part of this committee: museological institutions from more than 50 countries, as well as archives and universities related to the fields of decorative arts, design and museology.

The Committee of Decorative Arts and Design is dedicated to different topics, including the design of products, experiences and stories behind the object, house interiors, reconstitution, conservation and exhibition, authors and techniques, preservation for the future and education.

To become a member of ICOM-DESIGN, please join ICOM first. Once you are an ICOM member, please log in to the member space and choose ICOM-DESIGN as your primary International Committee. If you encounter any problems, please contact secretary.design@icom.museum.

Symposium Convener: Dr Denise Hagströmer, Senior Curator, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, and elected ICOM-DESIGN board member.

About the Keynote Speakers

Corinna Gardner is Senior Curator of Design and Digital at the V&A with responsibility for the museum’s digital design and digital art collections. Corinna leads the Rapid Response Collecting programme and her research focuses on product and digital design and their role in public life. Recent projects include the publication Digital Art: 1960s-Now (Thames & Hudson / V&A, 2024) showcasing the V&A’s computer and digital art collections, the permanent galleries Design: 1900–Now, and the exhibition Plastics: Remaking our World in partnership with V&A Dundee and the Vitra Design Museum, currently on show at the Hyundai MotorStudio in Busan, South Korea.

Dr Sebastian Hackenschmidt studied art history and German literature in Hamburg and Vienna. Between 2000 and 2002, he worked as a research associate with Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar of Universität Hamburg, where he earned his doctorate with a dissertation on the use of materials in contemporary art. After a stint as a trainee at Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg, he was appointed curator of furniture and woodwork at MAK – Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna, where he has overseen numerous exhibitions – among them Josef Frank: Against Design, Post Otto Wagner: From the Postal Savings Bank to Post-Modernism, and Bentwood & Beyond: Thonet and Modern Furniture Design. His research is focused on the history of furniture, design and (interior) architecture as well as modern and contemporary art and photography.

Marco Magni is a founder and chief architect of Guicciardini & Magni Architetti. The architectural firm, based in Florence, is involved in cultural heritage projects, such as museums, temporary exhibitions, theatres, auditoriums, libraries. Since 1990 Guicciardini & Magni Architetti has designed more than 100 museums and temporary exhibitions in Italy and internationally, dealing with masterpieces from every age. Among the most significant are: the Opera del Duomo Museum in Florence, the new National Museum in Oslo, the Biblioteque National Richelieu in Paris, the Science Museum in Palazzo Cavalli in Padua and the new Museum of Art and History in Beziers, France. Magni teaches exhibition design as a visiting professor at various universities, including the universities of architecture in Florence and Venice. Over the last 20 years he has lectured extensively at various universities and courses in Italy and internationally. Magni is currently working on the design of the introductory collection rooms at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, the restoration of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, as well as ongoing competitions.

Maria Cristina Rizzello graduated with honours in Architecture from the University of Florence in 2007 and immediately joined Guicciardini & Magni Architetti, where she became a partner in 2019. With over 15 years of experience as an architect and exhibition designer working in Italy and internationally, Rizzello specialises in museum projects and temporary exhibitions of varying complexity, following them from conception to completion. Among the most significant projects are: the Galileo Museum in Florence and the Textile Museum in Prato, temporary exhibitions such as Gianfranco Ferré at the Textile Museum in Prato, the Byzantine Palace of Tekfur, the Imperial Costume Museum and the Porcelain Museum in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. Between 2016 and 2022, Rizzello was involved in the project for the New National Museum in Oslo, participating in all phases as exhibition designer, project manager and site supervisor. Rizzello is currently working on the design of the introductory collection rooms at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, and several international competitions.

Dr Leena Svinhufvud is Leading Researcher at the new Architecture & Design Museum in Helsinki and Docent in art history at the University of Helsinki. She is a scholar of design history, specialising in modern textile design. Her research themes include questions of gender and craft, oral histories, exhibitions and museum collections and most recently, citizen curation and audience-generated data. Dr Svinhufvud has a long career in museum learning and she has executed several projects exploring the collection of the Design Museum Helsinki in new ways. She is currently working on the major renewal of the collection display at the Architecture & Design Museum. The collection exhibition opening in the new museum building, scheduled for 2030, will highlight the interplay of architecture and design and present a platform for rewriting stories of Finnish architecture and design.

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