In a new landmark presentation of Cooper Hewitt’s collection, Design Across Time: Exploring Smithsonian’s Design Collection brings together more than 125 works across multiple design disciplines, including product and graphic design, fashion, textiles, digital design, wallcoverings and architecture. Join the curatorial team for an inside look at how this major new installation came together, from shaping its central themes to choosing objects from the museum’s vast collection. Light refreshments will be provided after the illustrated conversation.
An ASL Tour will be provided prior to this lecture program. Learn more.
Speakers
Susan Brown is Associate Curator and Acting Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where she oversees a collection of more than 26,000 textiles produced over 2,300 years. She has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions for Cooper Hewitt, including Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance (2005), Fashioning Felt (2009), Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay (2011), Scraps: Fashion, Textiles and Creative Reuse (2016), Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (2018), Contemporary Muslim Fashions (2020), Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints that Made the Fashion Brand (2021), A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes (2023), Made In America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne (2025), and Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection (2026). In addition to catalogues for those exhibitions, she has contributed to numerous other publications, including Alexander Girard: A Designer’s Universe and Ruth Adler Schnee: Modern Designs for Living. She has taught in the Masters’ Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies offered jointly by the museum and Parsons/The New School for Design, and lectures regularly for the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.
Emily M. Orr is Associate Curator and Acting Head of Product Design and Decorative Arts at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum where her exhibitions include Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection (2026), Give Me a Sign: The Language of Symbols (2023), Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer (2021-2022), and Botanical Expressions (2019-2021). She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art/Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Her primary areas of scholarship span industrial design, the modern interior, and retail history. She is the author of Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2019) and co-editor and contributor to E. McKnight Kauffer: The Artist in Advertising (Rizzoli Electa/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2020).
Julie Pastor is a Curatorial Assistant at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where she develops and produces major exhibitions and publications on modern and contemporary design and manages the Digital Collection department. She holds an M.A. in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from Bard College. Her recent projects include Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection (2026), Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial (2024), An Atlas of Es Devlin (2023), Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics (2021), and Willi Smith: Street Couture (2020).
Accessibility & What to Expect:
- Format: The program will begin with a brief welcome, then the speakers will engage in a moderated conversation. It will end with an optional Q&A with the audience.
- Accommodations: The program will have live CART captioning and ASL Interpretation. If we can provide additional services to support your participation, email us at CHEducation@si.edu or let us know when you register. Please make your request as far in advance as possible—preferably at least ten days before the program date.
- Recording: The program will be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within two weeks.
