Dr Kasia Jezowska

I am a cultural historian of Eastern Europe. My research focuses on the material cultures of state socialism, considering their industrial, political, and social dimensions during the Cold War. More broadly, I am interested in how things are mobilized in service of politics and intercultural exchanges and the role of state bureaucrats, designers, and architects. At UNSW, I convene and teach a range of courses in design history and theory that introduce students to objects and ideas as outcomes of broader cultural, social, and economic processes. My first book, entitled Socialist by Design: Modern Things and Cultural Diplomacy in Cold War Poland offers the first comprehensive study in any language of design diplomacy in Eastern Europe. Following the making and reception of five exhibitions, the book explores how the ailing Polish state reframed interwar cultural heritage, promoted modernised folklore, and endorsed the emergence of industrial design to elevate its international position. The research for this project has been supported by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Wayne Vucinich Fellowship at Stanford University, the Design History Society, and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Socialist by Design offers a new vantage point from which to think about Cold War intercultural exchanges as it demonstrates how Poland, from the confines of the Eastern Bloc, manifested its modern aspirations vis-a-vis the wider world. The book introduces new actors into the project of socialist modernity – architects and designers – and demonstrates their influence on the state’s cultural, industrial, and social policies. The research contributes to the interdisciplinary scholarship on international diplomacy by conceptualizing the role of exhibitions in advancing the country’s economic prospects, building political prestige, and redefining national industrial aesthetics. In 2018, expanding on this research, I curated an exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan that presented industrial expositions and trade fairs as quintessential projects of 20th-century modernism. My second book-length project, tentatively titled Carbon Culture: Coal Diplomacy during the Cold War examines the decades-long process of construction and dissemination of European carbon culture. By employing the combined methodology of art history, European history, and environmental humanities, it aims to conceptualise coal as a culturally constructed good to elucidate the role of fossil fuels in industrial modernity. Conversely, by turning the lens towards soft power, it addresses the current research gap in understanding the cultural reasons behind contemporary dependency on fossil fuels. I presented the preliminary outcomes of this research at an invited lecture at Humboldt University in Berlin in 2022 and at Stanford University during my visiting fellowship in the Spring of 2023. I will advance this study during my fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in the academic year 2025/26.