A Model Archive

Project Under Development

Project Leads

Professor Judith Mottram, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, and Professor Sandra Kemp, The Ruskin

Through collections spanning 1731 to today, ‘A Model Archive’ explores the relevance of the design archive today for different uses, and users.

Shaped through community participation, the project will connect the archives of Gillows of Lancaster, the W. G. Collingwood Archive (Coniston, Lake District), Pilkington’s Tile and Pottery Company (Salford) and Atkinson Design Associates (Leicester), with the Ruskin Whitehouse Collection. Drawing on Ruskin’s ideas about craft and society, ‘A Model Archive’ will unsettle existing concepts of the design archive; explore new ways of interpreting objects and the stories of the people who imagined, made and used them; and speculate on the future of the archive in a digital world.

A Model Archive: Lab

Part of The Ruskin’s series of Laboratories – your opportunity to get involved in our work.

Why, how and for who do we keep things?

We will think about these questions using paper, digital and 3D material from archives in the North of England, spanning 1731 to today.

Through activities, workshops and talks, explore the relevance of the design archive today for different uses, and users. Our findings will shape The Ruskin’s exhibition, ‘A Model Archive’.

A Model Archive: Exhibition

Through collections spanning 1731 to today, ‘A Model Archive’ speculates on the future of keeping things.

From papers, to photographs, to proto-types, explore the archives of Gillows of Lancaster, the W. G. Collingwood Archive (Coniston, Lake District), Pilkington’s Tile and Pottery Company (Salford) and Atkinson Design Associates (Leicester), with the Ruskin Whitehouse Collection.

Find new ways of interpreting objects and the stories of the people who imagined, made and used them.

Image: Wind Turbine (section) (© Atkinson Design Associates Archive)