Elin Manker

I have recently started a three-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council: 'Blå blom' and the Alternative Modern. Heritagization in Design. The project investigates design during the 20th century that uses other design principles than modernism, and that had huge impact for the producing industries. I will discuss such design in the light of critical heritage studies and as part of a history of intellectual property law.

During this year a monograph based on an eralier research project will be published, Selma Giöbel. Modern textil kirng 1900 [Modern Textile around 1900]. It investigates craftmanship, textile tesign and trade in Sweden, ca 1885–1915. The objective is to analyse textile design at that period as a pattern-making at the intersection between multiple ongoing movements: internationality and nationality; trade and artistic/craft practice; three dimension and two dimension pattern desgin; as well as the possibilityies/opportunities for women interaction in the field of design during this period, in the aftermath of the 19th century women's emancipation. The work and practice of Selma Giöbel (1843-1925) forms the example that is followed through the investigation.

I was awarded my PhD at Stockholm University 2019 on the project Förlagd Form. Designkritik och designpraktik i Sverige 1860–1890 (Serialized Form. Design Criticism and Design Practice in Sweden 1860–1890), Gidlunds förlag 2019, where I explored the interconnections between aesthetic theories, the production processes and the commercial market of early-industrialised design in Sweden. The investigation shows how 19th century eclecticism in design functioned as an element design acting through motif repertoires, how this was a practice based on guild crafts methods blended with the collective processes of production-lines in manufactories, and how this was simultaneously affected by the flourish of images in contemporary, modern society. A strong implication for the Swedish context was German aesthetics in its popularised form, here identified and described as a popular aesthetics.

I am teaching at all levels in Art History and Visual Studies.