6pm Reception
6:30pm Presentation
7:30pm Q&A
Tickets
Member $20
Non-member $30
Student $10
Overview
Ready for a mouthful? Design Thinking is AIGA Chicago’s bi-annual lecture series devoted to design leaders, educators, curators and authors who are actively reshaping the creative process, directing currents in contemporary culture and evolving the meaning of design.
But all you really need to know is that Zoë Ryan—who, since 2006, has been building the Art Institute of Chicago’s first collection of contemporary design—will be speaking at Morningstar on Thursday, May 21, and it’s going to be great.
About Zoë Ryan
Zoë Ryan is a British curator and writer. She is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since joining the museum in 2006 she has been building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design in addition to expanding its holdings of 20th and 21st century architecture.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to her work, Zoë’s recent exhibitions include “David Adjaye: Form, Heft, Material” (2015); “Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects” (2012); “Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund” (2012); “Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention” (2011): “Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design,” (2010); “Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design” (2009); and “Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Design” (2008).
In 2014, Zoë was the Curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, entitled: “The Future is Not What it Used to be.”
Prior to working at the Art Institute, Zoë was Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York where she organized exhibitions including “The Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation” (2006).
Zoë has authored and edited numerous publications, including: Building with Water: Designs, Concepts, Visions (Birkhauser Press, 2010). Often called upon as a juror and critic, Zoë has lectured on her work internationally. She has served on the advisory committee of the Experimenta Design Biennial in Lisbon and was part of the curatorial advisory committee for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. She served as Chair of the Jury for the National Design Awards, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York in 2013, and that same year was part of the jury for the Wheelwright Fellowship, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
In fall 2012, Fast Company magazine named Zoë one of the 50 people shaping the future of design.
Zoë is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a lecturer in the Art History Department at the School of the Art Institute where she teaches a Masters-level seminar focused on critical issues in design.
Special thanks to Jonathan McGlothin and Vida Sacic, AIGA Chicago Event Co-Chairs, for organizing this event and to Leo Burnett for the artwork.
This event is sponsored by Harrington College of Design.