By Design, a talk series at Sir John Soane’s Museum, in partnership with Luke Irwin, is back for its third season. Internationally renowned designers are invited to discuss their practice through a single object from the Museum. In this talk, Will Gompertz talks to artist Cornelia Parker.

Listen in the Player below.

About the speakers

Cornelia Parker lives and works in London. Over the last three decades, she has presented numerous major commissions and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2019); Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster (2017); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016), The Whitworth, the University of Manchester (2015), British Library, London (2015), BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2010), Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru (2008), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2007) and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2006).

Parker was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and made an OBE in 2010. She was elected the Apollo Awards Artist of the Year in 2016, and the following year, awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. In 2017, she was appointed as the first female Election Artist for the United Kingdom General Election. She was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2021. Her works are held in public and private collections around the world including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Fundación “la Caixa”, Barcelona and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Cornelia Parker speaks to Will Gompertz. Cornelia Parker in the Library-Dining Room of Sir John Soane's Museum.

Will Gompertz has led the Barbican Centre’s artistic direction and wide-raging education programmes since June 2021. Before taking on this role, Will was the BBC's first ever Arts Editor, a senior journalistic and broadcasting role he started in 2009. Will reported extensively on the arts across the globe, interviewed countless artists, actors, writers, musicians, and directors. He also wrote and presented documentaries for BBC One and BBC Two, and hosted shows on Radio 2, Radio 4, and BBC 5-Live. Prior to joining the BBC, Will spent 7 years as a Director of the Tate Galleries where he was responsible for its BAFTA-winning website, creative direction, and the launching of the UK's first Performance Art festival. 

Will has written two internationally best-selling non-fiction books (published by Penguin in the UK). What Are You Looking At? (2012), a history of modern art, and Think Like an Artist (2015) about creativity. Both books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Will was voted one of the World's Top 50 Creative Thinkers by New York's Creativity magazine and is a Supernumerary Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford University.

Photos: Victoria Dawes

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