Dr Kasia Jezowska

Kasia Jeżowska is a historian of design and culture and in particular, she is interested in the political role of design in the 20th and 21st centuries. She was awarded a doctorate in History from the University of Oxford in 2019 for a dissertation on the industrial exhibitions and trade fairs in the post-war period. Her doctoral research formed a backbone of a thematic exhibition Back to front. Polish exhibitions on show, which she curated for the Triennale Design Museum in Milan in 2018.

Her 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 used in their diplomatic endeavours to present itself vis-a-vis other countries as a socialist yet distinctly unique country.

Her new research Coal Nations and Carbon Cultures, continues an investigation into the political potential of industrial exhibitions, placing coal at the forefront of this inquiry.

She joined the University of New South Wales in Sydney in 2019 where she has developed and convened, together with Dr Livia Lazzaro Rezende, a comprehensive history and theory of design programme. Prior to that, she worked as an Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts, University of Hertfordshire, and as a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art.