The Heart of the Home: The Design and Material Culture of the Modern Kitchen

17 September 2019

Speaker: Deborah Sugg Ryan, Professor of Design History and Theory

This year the Association for Art History’s Annual Public Lecture will take place in partnership with the Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester and The Whitworth as a Whitworth Studies event. The 40-minute talks are designed to show how the practice and history of art and design can help us think differently and see differently about the world around us.

We are delighted that Deborah Sugg Ryan will be this year’s speaker. Deborah is Professor of Design History and Theory and Associate Dean at the University of Portsmouth. She also presents on the BBC series, ‘A House Through Time’.

For this event Deborah will talk about the evolution of the design, equipment and use of the modern domestic kitchen as both an actual room and an imagined space. She will look at the changing practices of work done in kitchen, throwing class and gender roles into focus. Her talk will explore how the kitchen has evolved through time, influenced by ideology, socio-economic, cultural, architectural and design visions, and practical conditions. For instance, the kitchen as a space for food preparation, eating and a general ‘lived in’ space. As well as the kitchen as a separate, functional ‘working’ space purely for cooking, cut off from the rest of the house to avoid the smells and fumes of cooking, and contact with servants. The talk will unpick the ideals from the lived realities of the kitchen.

Venue: The Whitworth, Manchester

Date: 3 October

Time: 6 – 7 pmThursday

The event is free but please pre-book tickets via our Eventbrite page. Please pre-book your free tickets ahead of the event so that we have an idea of how many people are attending. Free tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

For more details click here.