Harriet Atkinson

Dr Harriet Atkinson is a historian of art and design and course leader for University of Brighton's MA Curating Collections and Heritage, with experience in filmmaking, curating, policymaking and grant-giving. Harriet co-leads the Centre for Design History's research strand on Design Activism with Alex Todd.

Harriet's research interests include art, design and dress for propaganda, protest, resistance, dissent and solidarity; government engagements with art and design; the development and professionalisation of design practice; and histories of exhibitions and world's fairs.

Graphic Design Histories for Creative Dissent: Archiving and Ethical Challenges

Harriet is part of the team for the Trans-Atlantic Platform project Graphic Design Histories for Creative Dissent: Archiving and Ethical Challenges, running from September 2024 to December 2027, funded through FAPESP, NRF and UKRI and in collaboration with Prof Teal Triggs, Royal College of Art (PI); Assoc Prof Priscila Farias, University of São Paulo; Assoc Prof Deirdre Pretorious, University of Johannesburg; Dr Thandi Gamedze, University of the Western Cape; and Assoc Prof Lee-Shae Sharnick-Udemans, University of the Western Cape. 

Decolonising the Archive: creating an archive for impactful policy-making

Harriet is collaborating with curator and cultural strategist Clare Cumberlidge, artist and archivist Êvar Hussayni and youth organisers The Advocacy Academy on the Research England-funded project Decolonising the Archive: creating an archive for impactful policy-making in summer 2025 and the linked Royal College of Art-led project Radical Archiving for Change.

Designing from Home

Harriet is collaborating with Sue Breakell and Banyak Productions to make new documentary film Designing from Home, about the North London house of graphic designer F.H.K. Henrion, which was both a family home and the office for an expanding design practice over more than forty years. The film will launch in 2025.

Lost and Found: the biography of a photo album

Harriet is writing a new book, Lost and Found: the biography of a photo album, exploring personal photographs and the politics of memory, reflections sparked by a family album returned to Harriet by a stranger in 2022.

Recent research: The Materialisation of Persuasion

From 2019-23, Harriet was Arts and Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellow and Principal Investigator leading the project '"The Materialisation of Persuasion": Modernist Exhibitions in Britain for Propaganda and Resistance, 1933 to 1953'.

This resulted in:

* the book Showing resistance: propaganda and Modernist exhibitions in Britain, 1933-53 (Manchester University Press, 2024), published Open Access and available to download here.

* a chapter for co-edited book British Writing, Propaganda, and Cultural Diplomacy in the Second World War and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2024)

* a chapter for co-edited book Exhibition as Interior, Interior as Exhibition: Spaces of Display within and beyond the Museum and Gallery (Bloomsbury, 2025)

* the co-edited book Exhibitions Beyond Boundaries: Transnational Exchanges Through Art, Architecture and Design from 1945, with Dr Verity Clarkson and Dr Sarah Lichtman (Bloomsbury, 2022)

* an article about Misha Black's networks through exhibitions (Journal of Design History, 2021)

* podcast series Graphic Interventions (available on ITunes and Spotify)

* documentary film Art on the Streets, which Harriet co-directed with filmmaker Jane Dibblin. It was narrated by Michael Rosen and made with film charity Four Corners. The film launched in September 2023 and has since been shown in Berlin, Porto, Izmir, San Francisco, Brighton, London and beyond. Until July 2026, it is being screened at Tate Britain as part of the exhibition Artists International Association: the first decade. View the film's trailer here.

Cultural historian Professor Joanna Bourke described Art on the Streets as: ‘A documentary for our times. Aesthetically beautiful, politically gripping, and inspiring', while Financial Times Architecture and Design critic Edwin Heathcote described it as 'a life-affirming view of the capacity of art and design to provide hope in the darkest circumstances'.

The film has garnered several awards and nominations at international film festivals including: Finalist, London Director Awards 2025; Nominee, Learning on Screen Awards 2024; Official selection, Festival Internacional de Cine de la No-Violencia Activa (FICNOVA), 2024; Winner, 'Best Documentary Short', Luleå International Film Festival Sweden 2023; Winner, 'Best Documentary for Peace', Bridge of Peace Film Awards 2023; Winner, 'Best Documentary Short', California International Shorts Festival 2023; Finalist, 'Best Short Documentary', New York International Film Awards 2023; Finalist, Berlin International Art Film Festival 2023; Official Selection, Berlin Women Cinema Festival 2023; Official Selection, Miami Women Film Festival 2023; Official Selection, LA Independent Women Film Awards 2023; Official Selection, Cinecity Brighton Film Festival 2023; Nominee, Tokyo International Cinema Awards 2023; Official Selection, History Arts and Sciences International Doc Fest 2023. 

Harriet is elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; sits on the Editorial Board of Journal of Design History (2023-8); and is Advisory Board member for Bloomsbury Design Library. She won University of Brighton's Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence Award 2024; co-led Knowledge Exchange in her School (2023-4); was selected for the first cohort of University of Brighton's Vice Chancellor's Future Research Leaders programme (2022-3); leads University of Brighton Centre for Design History's research strand on Design Activism and sits on the University's Cross-School Research Ethics Committee.

Harriet was awarded a University of Brighton Rising Stars Award (2017-8), for a project entitled 'Information, Persuasion, Citizenship: Public Exhibitions 1914 to now'. While a Faculty Fellow at University of Brighton Design Archives (2010-3), she wrote a number of essays, reviews and her first monograph The Festival of Britain: A Land and its People (I.B. Tauris, 2012). She was section editor for 'design dissemination' for the three-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design (lead editor Professor Clive Edwards, 2015) and interviewer for the major oral history project tracing the origins of Design History (led by Dr Linda Sandino).

Harriet was awarded a doctorate from Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum's history of design programme (2006). She studied for a BA (Hons) in English and Related Literature with History of Art at University of York and for a MA in Art Museum Studies at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. Harriet has previously held a number of research awards including an AHRC Doctoral Award, British Academy Small Grant and Wingate Scholarship. Her research has also been supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, German Historical Institute Washington and Design History Society.

Harriet was Trustee and Research Grants Officer of Design History Society (2015-20). She regularly undertakes peer reviews for: journals including Journal of Design History, The Sculpture Journal, Literature & History, Contemporary British History; publishers including Routledge, Bloomsbury Academic, Berg, Palgrave Macmillan, Manchester University Press; academic conferences including DHS, International Conferences on Design History and Studies (ICDHS), Design Research Society (DRS), International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR); and academic grant applications + awards including Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Icelandic Research Fund and the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO). 

I am particularly interested in supervising PhDs on: government or 'official' uses of art and design; design and dress for propaganda and protest; design, diplomacy and soft power; and exhibition and display histories.

All successful applicants join the Centre for Design History's vibrant research community.

If you are planning a project that is connected to my research but not listed here feel free to contact me to discuss it further at [email protected]. 

My current and former PhD students have focused on themes including political poster design; protest dress; Cold War photobooks; conscientious objector art practises; clothing production and consumption during World War Two; and museum exhibition design. I have examined five PhDs to date: at University of Antwerp, University of Oslo, University of Southampton, Kingston University and University of Brighton.

Harriet welcomes media enquiries. She has extensive experience across print and broadcast media, including writing for newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent, Yorkshire Evening Post); for magazines (BBC History and British Archaeology); being interviewed live on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live; doing pre-recorded interviews for BBC Radio 5 Live and Times Radio; and being interviewed for History Extra Podcast (among other podcast appearances).

Harriet draws in her research and teaching from previous experience working on cultural policy and funding for a range of public organisations including advising ministers on National Lottery distribution at Department for Culture Media & Sport; assessing grant applications at Heritage Lottery Fund, the Museums & Galleries Commission and Greater London Enterprise; and working as Culture and Regeneration Manager with London local authorities at London Councils. She has also worked as fundraiser with a range of charitable and community organisations including as project manager for Orleans House Gallery's HLF-funded courtyard development education project and for Montpelier Community Nursery, which won a 2013 RIBA London Regional Award, a 2013 RIBA National Award and the 2013 RIBA Steven Lawrence Prize (for the best construction project under £1m).

Harriet is Course Leader for the MA Curating Collections and Heritage, a collaborative masters programme developed between University of Brighton and Brighton & Hove Museums. She has a PGCert in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education and is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Since 2013 she has taught on the University of Brighton's History of Art and Design BA degrees, offering special subjects including 'The Making of the Modern Home' and 'Understanding Exhibitions and Creating Displays'. At MA level Harriet offers modules on 'Critical Perspectives on Exhibitions', 'Professional Placements in Collections and Heritage' and prepares students for the major research project. Previously Harriet has taught Critical & Cultural Studies to University of Brighton BA (Hons) Graphic Design, BA (Hons) Illustration, BA (Hons) Design and Craft and BA (Hons) Fashion and Textiles (2014-19) and Cultural Studies to Fashion, Textiles and Jewellery students at Central St Martins, London (2014-16).

Harriet was Admissions Tutor for the four History of Art & Design degrees (2018-9). She was External Examiner on the Cert HE and Grad Cert in History of Art & Architecture at Birkbeck College (2016-19) and External Examiner on BA (Hons) Graphic Communication at University of Reading (2019-20).