Collecting the new: forecasting in the museum

This paper considers how the practice of design forecasting – a risk-managing service for the design industry, which circulates bulletins on ‘the future of design’, produced by scanning for related themes across emerging philosophy, popular culture, visual arts and design production - might inform and reflect museum-based collecting and curatorial strategies regarding ‘the contemporary’.
The post-WW2 period saw the establishment of design forecasting as an industry, as well as a growing concern for representing ‘contemporary art and design’ in major museums across Europe and America. This paper analyses three contemporary collection strategies employed by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London between the years 1947 and 2014, in terms of their approach to risk, circulation and forecasting of trends.
This analysis is underpinned by two central enquiries:
- While museums are highly successful at providing narratives for objects from the distant and recent past, how might a museum consider the possible design narratives of the future?
- In what ways do museums of art and design adopt entrepreneurial strategies, supporting not only the conservation of existing designed objects, but also the development and incubation of new ones?