Gender and Modern Design: Women as Producers and Women as Consumers
Twentieth-century modernisms have long been a staple—perhaps the central— topic of design history research, but much of this research only makes apparent the degree to which the history of modernism is a masculine one, formed from a perspective focused on the often more public achievements of male designers. Beginning in the late 1980s, scholars like Cheryl Buckley and Penny Sparke began re-visiting canonical modernist design histories, re-examining source materials from a feminist perspective, and asking how women’s experiences as designers, producers and consumers embodied, interpreted and challenged modernist ideology. This symposium on “Gender and Modern Design” sought to promote similar inquiry into the gendered nature of modernist design practices among historians in Japan, with particular attention to new research on women as producers and users.
22 July 2006, at 13.30-17.15
The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
Co-organised by Graduate School of Cultural Science, Saitama University
Sponsored by British Council Japan
Programme
Part 1: Keynote Speech
Penny Sparke (Professor at Kingston University, UK)
Part 2: Research Reports
Tsunemi Mikiko (Associate Professor at Kyoto Women’s University)
Jinno Yuki (Associate Professor at Kanto Gakuin University)
Part 3: Panel Discussion
Panelists : Penny Sparke, Tsunemi Mikiko, Jinno Yuki
Coordinator : Suga Yasuko (Associate Professor at Tsuda College)