Alison Clarke

BIAAS granted $18,385 to Alison Clarke in order to research and complete a biography on Austrian-American designer and theorist Victor Papanek. The scope of the grant include a number of research trips in the Unites States to New York City, Baltimore, Lose Angeles, Seattle, and Kansas City. Furthermore, the project funded research in Canada, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. The research project culminated in a four of journal articles such as “Design for Development: Anthropology in the 1970s Design Profession” in Journal Design History as well as a biography entitled Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World to be published by MIT Press in 2021. Furthermore, the research supported a collaborative symposium between Parsons New School of Design and University Applied Arts Vienna held in December 2014 and an accompanying exhibition held at Persons from September to December 2014.

Alison Clarke received her Ph.D. from the University College London and has servedas the chair of the Department of Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She is also the director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation and has written a number of books and contributed to BBC programing.