Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Bard Graduate Center advances the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through its object-centered approach to teaching, research, exhibitions, publications, and events.

At BGC, we study the human past and present through their material expressions. We focus on objects and other material forms—from those valued for their aesthetic elements to the ordinary things used in everyday life.

Our accomplished interdisciplinary faculty inspires and prepares students in our MA and PhD programs for successful careers in academia, museums, and the private sector. We bring equal intellectual rigor to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications, and innovative public programs, and we view all of these integrated elements as vital to our curriculum.

BGC’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street, a gallery at 18 West 86th Street, and a residence hall at 410 West 58th Street. A new collection study center will open at 8 West 86th Street in 2026.

Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center has become the preeminent institute for academic research and exhibition of decorative arts, design history, and material culture. BGC is an accredited unit of Bard College and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

Oknim Jo is a researcher, curator and historian working in the fields of architecture, craft, and design. She is the founding director of a curatorial research collective, the Curating Society, based in both South Korea and the UK. Her research interests include transnational design historiography, mid-twentieth-century interior design, postcolonialism, and archival studies. In 2020 she was awarded a research fellowship at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju. In 2021 she was an assistant curator at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, working on two main exhibitions, the Thematic Exhibition and the Cities Exhibition. In 2023 she was the academic director of the Design History Society of Korea and an adjunct professor at Konkuk University. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Brighton, working on a dissertation entitled “Transnational Studies of Interior Design Practice in South Korea from the 1960s to the 1980s.” Her research focuses on establishing historical accounts of the interior design profession and challenging existing design canons. During her fellowship at Bard Graduate Center, she conducts an archival-based case study that examines understudied figures in the interior design and furniture industries. Her research is deeply engaged with biographies, memories, and professional legacies. Through this research project, she aims to draw scholarly attention to Korean postwar modernity and its transnational historiography, and to contribute to the study of interior design history and global design history scholarship by uncovering primary sources from archives in the New York area.