Zara Arshad
PhD Student, V&A / University of Brighton
zara.arshad@network.rca.ac.uk
Collecting and displaying Korean craft and design at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1919-2019)
I am a researcher and curator interested in 20th– and 21st-century material and visual culture, liminal spaces, speculative histories, and design futures. I have previously held roles at Asia Culture Center in South Korea, the V&A, Design History Society UK, Beijing Design Week, and Icograda World Design Congress Beijing. Currently, I am a doctoral researcher based at the University of Brighton and V&A; a university lecturer; co-founder of the studio Geofictions with media artist Yaloo; and a Governing Board Member of 爻 yáo collaborative (formerly China Residencies).
My supervisors are Dr Yunah Lee and Dr Claire Wintle, University of Brighton, and Dr Rosalie Kim and Divia Patel, V&A.
Selected publications
‘Invisible Nodes in the Museum Meshwork: Tracing the Contributions of South Korean Maker-Donors* to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Korean Collection (1980-1993)’, in Race and Design, Routledge, forthcoming
‘Multiple Ways of Knowing and Doing Design’ LetterSeed 24 (the journal of the Korean Society of Typography), 2023
‘Whose Future?’ Disegno, 33, 24 November 2022 (online version)
‘Population Policy Posters’ in Fisher, M. M. and Winick, A. (eds), Designing Motherhood: things that make and break our births, MIT Press, 2021
Arshad, Z. and Yaloo (eds), Geofictions: Work in Progress, self-published, 2021