Congratulations to the Winners of the 2020 Virtual Design History Pathway!

Awards

1 October 2020

The Design History Society would like to congratulate the winners of the 2020 Virtual Design History Pathway. Amidst the constraints brought by the global lockdown conditions the Society has timely assessed the allocation of travel funding opportunities to support new, emerging challenges for researchers, students and colleagues in switching to online platforms and virtual mediums.

Announced in June the DHS Virtual Funding Pathway consisted of three interim awards to support both our student and professional members by providing an initial funding to encourage new virtual networks of discussion and collaboration generating research, digital teaching and learning activities in Design History.

The Virtual Design History Student Award was devised to facilitate virtual activity such as seminars, reading groups or symposia hopefully generating research and practice projects by students that can be showcased on the Design History Society website. A total of £1000 was available to be awarded in 2020 divided amongst several applications deemed of high merit, with individual awards of no more than £150, at the discretion of a judging panel drawn from the DHS Executive Committee. Three applications were received and awarded funds:

■ Design in Quarantine website founded in April 2020 to collect images and information about design responses to the coronavirus pandemic (£150 awarded to purchase domain name and social media support). Anna Talley and Fleur Elkerton, MA Students Royal College of Art London.

■ Wawasan 2020 Digitization of first-day cover stamps (1991-2020) for the Malaysian Design Archive (£150 awarded towards the acquisition of design ephemera). Denise Lai, MA Student Royal College of Art London

■ Student Lightning Talks a programme of live discussions and interviews. (£6.99 for subscriptions to online platforms). Jennifer McHugh, PhD student Winchester School of Art University of Southampton.


Established, Early Career and Independent Researchers, were encouraged to apply for the Virtual Event Grant to fund attendance or organization of a virtual conference or symposium. A total of £1000 was available in 2020 to be divided amongst several applications deemed of high merit, with individual awards of no more than £200, at the discretion of a judging panel drawn from the DHS Trustees. One application was received and awarded funds:

■ Kitchen Power: National Parallels Online Symposium, 16 and 17 September collaboration between Noel Campbell National Museum of Ireland-Country Life and Dr Sorcha O’Brien, Assistant Lecturer in Design History, NCAD.

The Rainbow Remote Teaching in Design History Innovation Award sought to champion the creativity and generosity of institutions and individuals engaging wider audiences in design history amidst the ‘lockdown’. The award was open to any teaching professional supported by a testimonial from learners; innovative projects were to be promoted by the DHS and honoured with an honorarium of £100. Sadly, no applications were received.

While congratulating the winners, we would like to express our gratitude to all the applicants, who through their invaluable projects and proposals continue to enrich and expand our field.