Dr Kasia Jezowska

Kasia Jezowska is a historian of modern Poland. Her research focuses on cultural exchanges between Eastern Europe and the world and on the material cultures of state socialism. More broadly, she is interested in how things are mobilised in service of politics and is committed to integrating design into the study of history.

At UNSW, she offers a range of courses on Design History and Theory that introduce students to objects and ideas as outcomes of broader cultural, social, and economic processes. She welcomes PhD candidates interested in Central Eastern Europe, the Cold War, design and exhibition histories.

Her first book, Socialist by Design: Modern Things and the Cultural Diplomacy of Cold War Poland, is the first comprehensive study in any language to explore the material culture of an Eastern European state in the service of international politics between the 1940s and 1970s. The book examines the role of design experts to materialise the communist regime’s modern aspirations vis-à-vis the world. By doing so, Socialist by Design proposes a new perspective (and a new archival material) from which to think about the state, its institutions, and the intellectual elite.

Her new research expands the study of materiality, encompassing both commodities, manufactured goods, and natural resources. It aims to contribute to the burgeoning field of environmental histories of Central Eastern Europe and put them in conversation with the region’s cultural history. Her second book-length project, tentatively entitled Coal Nation and Carbon Culture, is a cultural history of coal as a soft power during the Cold War. By focusing on displays of coal at international trade fairs and industrial exhibitions, this project intends to generate new insights into how national identities were consolidated around energy and explore the implications of this legacy for decarbonisation.

Her research has been supported by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Wayne Vucinich Fellowship at Stanford University, the Centre for East European Language-Based Area Studies, the Design History Society and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Her scholarly interest in international cultural diplomacy has developed in parallel to her curatorial practice, and engagement with museums and galleries, including Triennale Milano, Victoria and Albert Museum and National Museum in Warsaw.