Interview with Helen Charman

October, 2017
Interview with Helen Charman, Director of Learning and Research The Design Museum, London

1. I would like to start with celebrating the new museum building in Kensington High Street. I hope it will bring new chances for the creative minds. I guess you are far more ready and exited for the prospective programs.

Thank you. Yes, the project to create a new design museum has been incredibly exciting. We worked intensively across a ten year period to make it happen. Part of this process involved a 2.5 year Activity Plan for learning that you can read about on the designerlylearning blog. This was an important way to work with audiences, find out about their interests, motivations and needs for the new museum, and shape programmes and facilities accordingly.

2. Why do you think that learning is an integral part of a design museum?


Learning is in the DNA of the design museum and was a key objective in establishing the original museum back in 1989. The public articles for that inaugural museum described one of the core purposes of the organisation as being public education in design.

3. You have a speculative or rather thought provoking approach concerning design. If design needs to think in a creative way how to make it through learning? Isn't it paradoxical?


Creativity within constraints is at the heart of design. It’s what makes designers so distinctive: they have their feed on the ground, working within the real world of practical considerations for example, timescales, materials, technologies, planning regulations etc. But they also need to have their heads in the clouds – speaking metaphorically – they need to be able to imagine, to tell stories, to think divergently and metaphorically, ask propositional questions, how might we?, what if we? Learning programmes centre around

user need. We want to teach our learners to think like designers – for example developing skills of insight and empathy in order to understand user need; and working in teams and collaboratively.

4. You have programs for primary school level to higher education, do you think that the spirit of design is ageless?
Yes, design as understood as creativity to an applied purpose is certainly not age- dependent. But the older we get, often our ways of thinking can become increasingly linear and convergent, so perhaps one might propose that the young mind is a more fertile opportunity to nurture design thinking aptitudes! But then again, with age comes experience, and more developed abilities to look beyond ones own needs, to understand the wider context in which design operates. So really, design is for all.

5. Would you please tell us about the notion of “rebel museum” for which design museum is an example?
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by ‘rebel’. Unorthodox perhaps? The design museum, as an independent museum, sets its own values, mission and agendas. So to that extent one might say the institution has the potential to work in a different way from state funded museums. The business plan is also distinctive for the same reasons. The museum’s vision is to inspire everyone to understand the value of design in shaping – and ideally, improving – lives. The focus is on design that is looking to the future, on shaping the world, on human experience.

6. The museum have a joint blog with the learning team, http:// designerlylearning.org, that is a focused site for both design and learning enthusiasts. Who are your guest bloggers for the platform?


The blog charted our journey towards the new design museum. Predominantly blogs were written by the learning team, with invited contributors who were working on areas aligned with or complementary to the transformational journey to the new museum.

7. You have so many well-known supporters, such as Swarovski Foundation or John Lyon’s Charity, would you please say something about the significance of support for the museums that open doors for new talents?


There’s a shift in understanding of museums from an historical emphasis on museums as places that preserve the past as the sine qua non of their rationale, to museums as civic spaces, community resources, which can help make the people the future needs, to quote Robert Janes (author of Museums in a Troubled World). This involves supporting the next generation of creative professionals, and also of existing designers, teachers and other professionals whose work can be usefully enriched by the museum as a professional development resource.

8. Lastly, do you have suggestions for the people living in Turkey who have interest in art and design and lack of learning experiences?
Yes! Go online - explore the manifold digital resources offered by the national museums, not only the Design Museum but also the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate galleries. Look into free online courses such as those by FutureLearn. Sign up for radio podcasts on design topics. There is an enormous amount of free digital and broadcast content available.

This text first appeared in the October 2017 issue of Artam Global Art.