Design Matters: Lisa Godson, NCAD

Lisa Godson teaches Design History and Material Culture at Dublin's NCAD. Working with her students to uncover the fascinating stories behind everyday objects, she has put together an exhibition that includes a milk bottle, a tape measure and a 1930s restaurant menu from Jammet's.

"I'd studied history of art at Trinity, and there had always been this rhetoric that there was little overtly nationalist art in 19th-century Ireland, so when I came to do my thesis, I started to look at what might be there. I explored trade union banners and became interested in how objects embed ideas about ordinary life.

“I’m more interested in everyday objects than in ‘high design’. The students have researched things from the Little Museum in Dublin. From a milk bottle, one looked at TB, the Sweepstakes, urban agriculture (did you know there was once a dairy on Leeson Street?) and the urban cowman. It’s a different scenario from high art. Instead of attributing much agency to the original producer, you’re looking at a network of connections.

“What I really like is when you find an object that seems really difficult – you don’t know when and where it came from – so you’re like a detective. The current students are phenomenal detectives. That’s where the fascination comes from, the stories behind the objects and what they can tell us about how life was lived.

“Because these things surround us every day, we can overlook their importance and how they influence how we act, think and feel. The world comes alive in a very different way. When you start to think like that, it’s like you’ve gone over a bridge, it’s like a new world. You become conscious of how taste is formed . . .

“Our things can teach us about personhood, what we are, and these ideas make teaching such a pleasure. You can get as much out of a paperclip as you can from a van Gogh painting.”

The Secret Lives of Objects is at the Little Museum of Dublin until 30th April. littlemuseum.ie . Godson will also be giving a talk as part of the Design Bites series for ID2015 on April 16th at the Coach House, Dublin Castle.