BGC Craft, Art and Design Oral History Project

The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

The Bard Graduate Center Craft, Art, and Design Oral History Project is an online archive of oral history interviews of contemporary craftspeople, artists, and designers. The primary form of these interviews are transcripts, illustrated with photographs of the interviewees and their work; some also feature audio and video clips. These makers come from many fields: studio craft in wood, ceramics, fiber, metal, glass, and mixed media; architectural, industrial, graphic, fashion, and costume design; and sculpture and installation art. Topics discussed include background and education, aesthetics, goals, career choices, and the marketplace. Interviews range in focus and length; some concentrate on specific projects, while others recount life histories.

Started in 2007, the project responds to the growing interest in craft and design history, in which oral histories have been a key resource for a growing body of scholarship. The goals of the project are twofold. One is to document, preserve, and make available the voices of contemporary makers for the purpose of research. By including creators in multiple fields, the archive provides the opportunity to consider the distinctions, continuities, and fluidity among their practices and their work. The project’s second aim is to share strategies for developing primary sources on contemporary craft, art, and design via the practice of oral history.