In 2014 Bard Graduate Center, the Center for Craft, and the Museum of Arts and Design partnered to create the first dedicated position for craft research and scholarship in the United States. The Windgate Research Curator is the culmination of this partnership, linking America’s flagship museum devoted to the skilled maker, the leading specialist academy for the study of the history of design and material culture, and the foremost national nonprofit granting organization devoted to advancing the study of craft history, theory, and practice in the United States.
‍
The Windgate Research Curator serves as part of the Museum of Art and Design’s Curatorial Department and acts as the lead academic and support for the museum’s exhibitions, also contributing their own research and overseeing external scholarly contributions. At Bard Graduate Center, the Windgate Research Curator helps expand teaching on the history of craft and making and provides the opportunity for students to have supervised professional experience via an ongoing museum practicum. The Windgate Research Curator also serves to on the Program Advisory Committee for the Center for Craft and contributes to its activities.
‍
Drawing on the successful foundation laid by the Windgate Research Curator and the partnering organization’s shared goal to develop scholarship in the fields of decorative arts, design history, material culture, and craft studies, these three organizations partnered on the interdisciplinary symposium, Shared Ground: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Craft Studies, held in New York City September 20-22, 2018.

You can learn more about this symposium here.