Witches of Design. Ann Lee : Design, Trance and Femin­ism

RADDAR Collec­tion

© Marie Humair, Atelier de numérisation de la Ville de Lausanne

© Marie Humair, Atelier de numérisation de la Ville de Lausanne

© Marie Humair, Atelier de numérisation de la Ville de Lausanne

Draw­ing on the story of Ann Lee, founder in 1774 of the egal­it­arian Shaker sect, Witches of Design brings together Shaker design – famous for its rock­ing chairs, flat brooms, and other iconic objects – with the rebel­li­ous figure of the witch. In 1837, ecstatic trances disrup­ted the estab­lished order of rituals, and the sect entered what became known as the “Era of Mani­fest­a­tions.”

Anim­ated by the spirit of Ann Lee, a group of unruly sisters begin to vibrate, whirl, and repur­pose objects of design in order to reclaim the free­dom that had been insi­di­ously taken from them over the decades. The result is a narrat­ive in which the history of design inter­twines with insub­or­din­a­tion, trance, and the creat­ive power of women.

This public­a­tion is avail­able at our book­store shop for CHF 15.–

The author

A professor of art and design history and theory at HEAD – Genève/ HES-SO, Alex­an­dra Midal is a prac­ti­cing artist and inde­pend­ent curator whose research into visual culture trans­lates into works, exhib­i­tions, books and films. Her public­a­tions to date include Do You Speak Flower? (Les Presses du réel, 2025), The Murder Fact­ory (Les Presses du réel, 2023), Design. Intro­duc­tion à l’his­toire d’une discip­line (Pocket, 2009) and Anti­design (Épithème, 2003). For several years, she has been explor­ing Shaker design through install­a­tions (Centre européen d’ac­tions artistiques contem­po­raines, Stras­bourg, 2022–23) and films. 

RADDAR Collec­tion

Launched by mudac – the Museum of Contem­por­ary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne – RADDAR is a series of texts dedic­ated to design research. RADDAR will appeal to anyone inter­ested in objects, spaces, archi­tec­ture, graph­ics and visual forms, includ­ing their repres­ent­a­tion, circu­la­tion, history, tech­nical evol­u­tion, signi­fic­ance and mater­ial make-up. 

Schol­arly and provoc­at­ive, poetic and disrupt­ive, RADDAR presents new inter­pret­a­tions of the defin­ing role of design in today’s culture. Outstand­ing as well as young and unex­pec­ted voices from all fields of design meet those from the social and cultural sciences, art, science, liter­at­ure and beyond. A space for dialogue, criti­cism, discus­sion, spec­u­la­tion and surprise, RADDAR aims to point its anten­nae at the vari­ous complex issues of design, reveal­ing the semantic, visual and aesthetic rich­ness of this field as well as its social, polit­ical and economic dimen­sions. 

Concept Marco Costantini
Jolanthe Kugler
Marie Taillan
Author Alexandra Midal
Editorial management Marie Taillan
Editorial coordination Virginie Vernevaut
Editor mudac éditions
Languages Français et anglais
Release 08.03.2026

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