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Dr Sorcha O’Brien
Sorcha’s bio
Dr Sorcha O’Brien BDes (NCAD), MA (Middlesex), PhD (Brighton), ANCAD, is a design historian interested in technology and identity, in both physical and digital 3D forms.
She is interested in broad issues surrounding technology and identity in design, whether mechanical, electrical or digital, particularly considering how technological artefacts are represented on screen and in print, and their meaning to the wider population (not just designers, architects and engineers). With a background in industrial and digital design, she is interested in issues surrounding the design of electrical appliances, computers and networked devices at work and in the home, critical design and the creation of online and filmic worlds, as well as the pedagogy involved in using digital technology in education. She completed her AHRC-funded PhD dissertation on the representation of electrical technology in 1920s Ireland at the University of Brighton, which was published in 2017 by Irish Academic Press.
Dr O’Brien is the curator of the Kitchen Power: Women’s Experiences of Rural Electrification, running in the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life from July 2019 to January 2021. This exhibition was part of her AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellow, through Kingston University, researching the introduction of electrical products into the Irish home in the wake of rural electrification in the 1950s and 1960s, in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland. Although domestic electric products were seen as modernising technologies in many other countries, this project uses object analysis, archival research and oral history to consider to what extent these meanings held in the Republic of Ireland, and will also result in a forthcoming book.
· Arts and Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellow, ‘The Electrification of the Rural Irish Home: Housewives, Electrical Products and Domesticity in the 1950s and 1960s’ in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland, 2016-19
· Design History Society Research Travel Grant, 2015
· Fundació Història del Disseny 2nd Alfaro Hofmann Collection Research Grant for the Study of Domestic Appliances: The Vacuum Cleaner, 2015
· Society for the History of Technology Brooke Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2014
· Society for the History of Technology Travel Grant, 2007
· Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Scholar, 2005 - 11
· Royal Hibernian Academy Thomas Damman Junior Memorial Trust Award, 2005
Articles:
O'Brien, Sorcha (2017) 'Made in Ireland'? National narratives and hybrid identities in Irish design history. Writing Visual Culture, 8. Available: http://www.herts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/187573/8_OBRIEN_MADE_IN_IRELAND_WVC8_2017_Final.pdf
O'Brien, Sorcha (2014) Review of The Story of Design. Journal of Design History, 27(4), pp. 413-414.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2011) Exhibition Review of: 'The moderns: the arts in Ireland from the 1900s to the 1970s' at The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Artefact (5), pp. 83-89.
Books:
O’Brien, Sorcha. Kitchen Power: Irish Women’s Experiences of Rural Electrification. Newbridge: Irish Academic Press, forthcoming 2021
O'Brien, Sorcha (2017) Powering the Nation: Images of the Shannon Scheme and Electricity in Ireland. Newbridge: Irish Academic Press.
Edwards, Clive; O'Brien, Sorcha; Atkinson, Harriet; Kettley, Sarah; Bhagat, Dipti; Raizman, David and Willis, Anne-Marie, eds. (2015) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Moran, Anna and O'Brien, Sorcha, eds. (2014) Love Objects: Emotion, Design and Material Culture. London: Bloomsbury.
Book Sections:
O’Brien, Sorcha. ‘Visions of Home: Nostalgia and Mobility, Past and Future in Serenity’s Domestic Spaceship Interior’ in Pat Kirkham & Sarah Lichtman (eds.) Screen Interiors: From Country Houses to Cosmic Heteropias, London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming April 2021
O'Brien, Sorcha (2016) Bouroullec, Ronan (1971–) and Erwan (1976–). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 184.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2016) Dunne & Raby (Dunne, Anthony 1964–; Raby, Fiona 1963–). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 444-445.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2016) Guixé, Martí (1964–). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 124.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2016) Heatherwick, Thomas (1970–). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 139.
O'Brien, Sorcha and Chesters, Robert (2016) Jongerius, Hella (1963-). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 262.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2016) Rittel, Horst (1930–90). in: Edwards, Clive, (ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 163-164.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2011) Technology and modernity: the Shannon Scheme and visions of national progress. in: King, Linda and Sisson, Elaine, (eds.) Ireland, Design and Visual Culture: Negotiating Modernity, 1922-1992. Cork: Cork University Press. pp. 59-71.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2009) Images of Ardnacrusha: Photography, Electrical Technology, and Modernity in the Irish Free State. in: Flannery, Eoin and Griffin, Michael, (eds.) Ireland in Focus: film, photography, and popular culture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. pp. 71-85.
O'Brien, Sorcha (2009) Photographic connections: electrical technology in the making of Ireland in the 1920s. in: Glynne, Jonathan , Hackney, Fiona and Minton, Viv, (eds.) Networks of Design. Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers. pp. 246-253.
‘MUJI: A study of nation, international and corporate identity’ in Nicola Gordon Bowe (ed.) Thought Lines: An Anthology of Student Research, Dublin: National College of Art & Design, 1998
