Reconsidering Canon questions and debates the influence of institutional design canons in history and in the contemporary practice of selecting, collecting and interpreting design. What are the criteria to select a design piece to be included in a collection or exhibition? How do institutions and collectors manage bias in the process of decision making for collecting design? In recent years, the established museum canon has been questioned, rejected but also diversified. The proposal of alternative canons address changing attitudes and values of society by critiquing institutionalism, power structures and systems of inequality. Aiming at questioning established principles, a group of forthcoming curators from MA Curating Contemporary Design (Kingston School of Art) have invited nine contemporary designers represented by Gallery FUMI, to respond by celebrating or rejecting a specific historical design canon of the last 150 years.
