Dr Linda King

Dr. Linda King is a cultural historian, curator and broadcaster (television and radio) specialising in interdisciplinary research that is frequently public facing, collaborative, and typically combines historical, theoretical and practice-based concerns. Her background is as a graphic designer and she co-chaired IADT’s Visual Communication/Graphic Design programme for eight years (2013-21).

Linda has published widely on Irish design, design professionalisation and visual culture, and authored the first comprehensive surveys of Irish design. Through FilmEU, she is currently engaged in Europe-wide research focused on the visual representation of colonialism and imperialism. At IADT she is one of the Academic Leads for the Elevate programme.

Linda has been a consultant to Dublin City Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs, RTE, the ESB, the National Archives (UK), and several media production companies. She sits on the Historical Studies Committee of the Royal Irish Academy (2022-) and sat on the Board of the National Museum of Ireland (2018-22), where she chaired its Strategy and Engagement Committee. She was an expert advisor the NMI on its new Changing Ireland galleries. Linda has been a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) for over twenty years.

Recent Activities:

1. Invited participant in Print Magazine’s Book Club webinar, November 13th (event)

1. Print Magazine is one of the world’s leading design magazines. LK was invited to participate in a webinar run by Print Magazine and moderated by Steven Heller and Debbie Milliman to celebrate Prof. Elizabeth Resnick’s latest publication: Women in
2. Design: rebalancing the canon. LK contributed an essay ‘Elizabeth Fitz-Simon: Professionalizing Graphic Design in Ireland’ on Elizabeth Fitz-Simon, the second graphic designer to be employed by the Kilkenny Design Workshops in 1971.
3. Talk on Irish Graphic Design for Irish Design Week, November 17th (event) LK gave the talk: ‘Where To Start and What To Include? Mapping the history/ies of Irish graphic design’ at the National Print Museum as part of Irish Design Week. The talk was based on a number or surveys LK has written on Irish Design and Irish Graphic Design (both published and forthcoming) and included a particular focus on female designers and their marginalisation within historiography.
4. Panorama of Congo at University of Manchester, October 13-15th (external teaching and lecturing)
5. LK brought the VR experiences of the Panorama of Congo project – in addition to physical artefacts – to UoM in October to run a series of workshops and give a number of talks to staff, students and curators about this FilmEU-sponsored project. The focus was on colonial histories and their legacies and participants spanned included many staff and students from the Geography
6. Department. Talk: Debunking Colonial Geographies: the Panorama of Congo exposed (to staff and post-graduate students of
7. Faculty of Geography); Talk: Panorama of Congo: decolonial approaches to dissonant heritage (to under-graduate students of
8. Faculty of Geography); Workshop: Panorama of Congo VR experience and responses
9. Exposing Contrasts: a conversation with Matthew G. Stanard on the Panorama of Congo and
10. Belgian Colonial Propaganda (publication)
11. LK co-authored this open access publication with Victor Flores for the Panoramic & Immersive Media Studies (PIMS) Yearbook, Volume 3 (2025), online and open access: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111695754/html#contents)
12. Establishment of IMHerit (Immersive Media Heritage) Centre of Excellence (establishment of research centre)
13. LK is the IADT Lead for this new Centre of Excellence along with Victor Flores (Lusofona University, Portugal) and Leen Engelen (LUCA School of Arts, Belgium). This initiative grew out of the success of the FilmEU-sponsored Congo VR project which has resulted in three public exhibitions and several publications. IMHerit will continue this work in media heritage and digital humanities including the examination of panoramas and cosmoramas about or exhibited in Dublin, Lisbon and Brussels.
14. Houses of Guinness: how Edward Cecil Guinness changed housing in Dublin (publication) This essay was published by RTE Brainstorm to coincide with Netflix’s launch of the House of Guinness series. It was the ‘most read’ article on the platform for the week of publication.
15. Appointment to the Curatorial Board of the National Print Museum (external appointment)
16. Appointment to PhD External Examiner for Ulster University (external appointment)