Elisava Masters' Talks - Viviane Stappmanns

Curating for the Common Good

To curate means to care. Literally. Traditionally, museum curators are minders, tasked with cultivating, preserving, and exhibiting precious objects, from artworks to stamps. In the case of design, these objects – and the exhibitions they are featured in – talk about the human drive for progress, about creative leadership, about material economies and technological innovations. But what does it mean to curate within the field of design in the 21st century? How can design exhibitions and books make a contribution to fostering more just, socially and ecologically sustainable societies? Curator Viviane Stappmanns has been exploring these questions across her work at the Vitra Design Museum and beyond. In her lecture, she will provide insights into the hands-on practice of curating, and into the broader issues that may inform how we present, discuss and practice design in the future.

Viviane Stappmanns

Curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. She is interested in exploring the contribution curators can make to rethinking design as a practice concerned with ecological and social sustainability. In her exhibition and teaching work, she experiments with new, collaborative approaches to curating and exhibiting. She has taught at different schools and universities, among them the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia and, most recently the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe. Prior to working at the Vitra Design Museum, Viviane has worked as an editor and curator within architecture and design contexts in Australia and Germany, and holds degrees in Interior Design and Journalism.

The exhibition “Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today!” (2021) will open at the Barcelona Design Museum in October 2023. Currently, she is working on the international travelling exhibition “Garden Futures”, due to open at the Vitra Design Museum in Spring 2023.