As Head of Curatorial at London’s Design Museum and award-winning design journalist, Priya Khanchandani bridges institutional scholarship and public discourse. Her work focuses on:
Successful pitches to Khanchandani should:
Recent Recognition:
Priya Khanchandani has carved a unique path as a cultural commentator bridging design, architecture, and social commentary. With dual expertise in law and design history, her work reveals how material culture shapes human experiences. Currently Head of Curatorial at London’s Design Museum, she oversees exhibitions that challenge perceptions of everyday objects while maintaining an active journalism career analyzing design’s societal impacts.
This personal essay reframes fashion as therapeutic practice through the lens of Khanchandani’s cancer recovery. Blending memoir with object analysis, she examines how clothing choices became acts of bodily reclamation. The piece introduced the concept of “sartorial agency” to mainstream discourse, influencing how museums now approach wearable art exhibitions [6].
In this wide-ranging interview, Khanchandani articulates her vision for “democratic curation” – making design scholarship accessible without diluting complexity. She critiques Eurocentric design histories and advocates for exhibition formats that center marginalized creators. The piece became a manifesto for next-gen curators [8].
Analyzing textile motifs across former British colonies, this investigative feature exposes how design elements were weaponized during colonial rule and later reclaimed. Khanchandani’s forensic examination of archival records sets new standards for material culture studies in postcolonial contexts [4].
Khanchandani prioritizes pitches connecting design to unexpected fields like healthcare or climate science. Her Offbeat Sari exhibition demonstrated this by linking textile innovation to space engineering materials. Successful pitches should outline how a design object/practice intersects with broader social systems [5][6].
With 63% of her curated exhibitions featuring BIPOC designers, Khanchandani seeks stories challenging Western design canons. Pitch narratives about diasporic design collectives or indigenous material innovations, providing evidence of their cultural impact beyond aesthetic value [5][8].
Her articles consistently cite peer-reviewed studies from journals like Design Issues. When pitching design trends, include footnotes to recent scholarship and primary source materials like patent filings or workshop recordings [4][6].
Khanchandani’s team won for Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems, an exhibition critiquing fast fashion through radical sustainability practices. The jury praised its “innovative integration of live manufacturing processes within gallery spaces” – a direct result of her legal training in contractual logistics [5].
“Exhibitions should be sites of productive discomfort, where visitors confront the ethical dimensions of their material choices.”
Secured £150,000 to acquire works by South Asian designers post-1947, addressing historical collection gaps. This initiative informed her book Decolonizing Design (Thames & Hudson, 2023), now standard reading in 14 UK design programs [5][8].
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Design, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
