Guest Curator
Dr Catharine Rossi
"I was honoured to receive the invitation from Craft Scotland to curate this talk series. I chose the theme of community pre-pandemic, as it has long had strong affinities with craft in all its manifestations: the theme has become even more relevant and vital in the last year, and I'm delighted at the programme of speakers and themes that we've been putting together."
Dr Catharine Rossi is an Associate Professor in Design History at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, London. She is Director of Research for the School of Critical Studies and Creative Industries and UoA 32 coordinator for REF 2021.
Her research interests include histories and theories of design and craft past and present. She completed her AHRC-funded PhD at the RCA/V&A Museum in 2011 and developed this research into Crafting Design in Italy: From Postwar to Postmodernism (MUP, 2015).
Together with Alex Coles, Catharine is co-editing Post Craft: Towards New Economies of Making (Sternberg Press, forthcoming), which brings together academics and practitioners to explore the recent craft resurgence. In 2016, she was Principle Investigator on China’s Creative Communities: Making Value and the Value(s) of Making.
Catharine's other research interests include nightclubs. Most recently she co-curated Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960 - Today (Vitra Design Museum, 2018), which is currently touring to the V&A Dundee until January 2022.
