Toward an Artifact-Forward Feminist Design History

<p>Feminist Design History is a field abundantly sown, with lots of room for growth. This essay digs through seminal and contemporary works of feminist design history to learn how to contribute to the field most thoughtfully. I find that future scholarship must meet four criteria in order to effectively meet the goals of feminist design. The proposed research criteria are to cut across definitions of craft and design, challenge the centrality of individuals, draw from a broad pool of resources, and study objects in and outside of the public sphere. I use these criteria to advocate for design research which elevates objects previously excluded by the design canon, hoping to gain insight on the values of historically oppressed identities. A case study of a block quilt from the Library of Congress’<em> Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978–1996</em> allows for testing the efficacy of an artifact-forward research method, Prownian analysis, as a means of studying such objects. Through this case study, I discover the rich potential in highlighting dimmed design histories through subsidizing the more formal, close looking of an artifact-forward approach with the contextual information available in non-design archives.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Illustration & Visual Culture

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate School of Art

Year dc:date.available

2024

Author dc:creator

• Caldwell, Celeste

• feminism
• feminist design history
• feminist design
• quiltmaking
• women in design
• women's design
• artifact-forward analysis
• craft
• design
• Art and Design

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_illustration/26

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:mfa_illustration-1028