Dr Kasia Jezowska

I am a historian, and at the centre of my research is the cultural history of Eastern Europe. More broadly, I am interested in the relationship between design and political narratives, industrial exhibitions, and design diplomacy in the 20th and 21st centuries.

I joined UNSW in 2019 to develop a comprehensive programme in design history and theory. Since then, I have been lecturing and convening a range of courses in history and theory for BA and MA students. I am a co-convenor of the Design and Humanities Work in Progress Seminar (with Livia Lazzaro-Rezende). Previously I worked as an Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts, the University of Hertfordshire, and as a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London. 

My current book project, tentatively titled Socialist by design. Statecraft, industry, and the national style in Cold War Poland, argues that industrial exhibitions and trade fairs were powerful tools that the state employed to present itself vis-a-vis other countries as a socialist yet distinctly unique country. It expands on my doctoral project (University of Oxford, 2019), which examined the role of design, craft and architecture in imagining ‘modern Poland’ in the three post-war decades.

My new project Coal Nations and Carbon Cultures continues this investigation into the political potential of industrial exhibitions, placing coal at the forefront of this inquiry. By examining the complex relationship between natural resources, industrial products and national identity, the project seeks to explain longstanding reliance on this increasingly problematic material resource.