Dr Lina Hakim
Faculties, deparments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Critical and Historical Studies
- School of Creative and Cultural Industries
Senior Lecturer in Visual and Material Culture
- Email:
- l.hakim@kingston.ac.uk
About
I am a researcher, lecturer and artist particularly interested in overlaps between the material cultures of science, technology, craft, and play. I joined Kingston University in October 2015 teaching Critical and Historical Studies, mainly to Graphic Design students.
I was recently Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where I coordinated the V&A Research Institute Pilot Project exploring models of object-led inquiry and developing opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborative research. I taught 'Key Concepts' on the V&A/RCA History of Design MA programme, examining the latest theories and methodologies in the field, and I ran a ‘Thinking Things' reading group for V&A staff, discussing key texts in object-oriented research.
I also teach 'Science, Art & Design' to undergraduate STEM students at Imperial College, London, where I also supervise an independent study module on the theme of ‘Science Culture and Society'.
Qualifications
- PhD Humanities & Cultural Studies, the London Consortium, Birkbeck, University of London
- MRes Humanities & Cultural Studies, the London Consortium, Birkbeck, University of London.
- MA Book Arts, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London
- BA Graphic Design, American University of Beirut
Domains
Courses taught
My research concerns ways of studying artefacts and the thinking that they allow, focusing in particular on overlaps between the visual and material cultures of design, technology, art, science, craft and play.
My doctoral project, ‘Scientific Playthings: Artefacts, Affordance, History', looked at three 19th-century scientific instruments that become toys – the string surface model, the Crookes radiometer and the gyroscope – as case studies to explore the understanding that things afford at the levels of encounter, production, use and re-appropriation.
My interest in how we learn from made things and from making processes is informed by my training and practice in art and design: it is driven by a tendency to draw things together, attentiveness to skill and craftsmanship, focus on the phenomenological unfolding of made objects at the maker/user interface, an alertness to the significance of meaning and interpretative tools in design, and active engagement with the politics of artefacts as assemblages.
My current research pursuits include work on case studies for a history of graphic design in the Arab world, studies of research methods at the interface of theory and practice, and an editorial project aiming to reinstate André Breton as a key thinker on object-led inquiry.
Publications
Dia Al-Azzawi: taking a stand: activism through graphic design
Hakim, Lina (2017). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: (Khatt Books)
Book Review of: 'Moving objects : a cultural history of emotive design' by Damon Taylor
Hakim, Lina, 2023, Journal of Design History
Stones, pebbles, and rocks
Hakim, Lina, 2021, Journal of Visual Culture (20), 2
Things in lockdown
Hakim, Lina, 2020, Rosa Mercedes (2)
Object lessons : Making, Knowing, and Growing things - Review of: 'Ways of making and knowing : the material culture of empirical knowledge' by Pamela H. Smith, Amy R.W. Meyers, Harold J. Cook ; 'Making and growing : anthropological studies of organisms and artefacts' by Elizabeth Hallan, Tim Ingold
Hakim, Lina, 2015, Huntington Library Quarterly (78), 1, pp 127-136
Hakim, Lina, 2015, (7)
Instruments as Playthings : an alternative methodology for the study of scientific artefacts = Pristroje jako hracky : alternativni metodologie vyzkumu vedeckych artefaktu
Hakim, Lina, 2013, Teorie Vedy/Theory of Science (35), 2, pp 197-226
Book Review of: 'Spacesuit : fashioning Apollo' by Nicholas de Monchaux
Hakim, Lina, 2012, Critical Quarterly (54), 3, pp 121-125
Designing a scientific instrument : lessons from the Crookes radiometer
Hakim, Lina (2023). In: Atzmon, Leslie, (ed.), Design and science. Bloomsbury Publishing
Hakim, Lina (2015). In: Phongsathorn, Thomas, (ed.), London, U.K.: Cultureshock Media for the Victoria and Albert Museum, pp 66-69
What I do with books
Hakim, Lina (2009). In: Bodman, Sarah, (ed.), Artist’s Book Yearbook 2010 - 2011. Bristol, U.K.: Impact Press, pp 69-75