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

Starting from the story of Ann Lee, the founder of the egalitarian Shaker sect in 1774, Witches of Design combines the tenets of Shaker design–famous for its rocking chairs, flat brooms and other iconic objects–with the seditious figure of the witch. In 1837, the community's established ritual order was disrupted by impromptu bouts of ecstatic trances–the start of the so-called Era of Manifestations. Driven by the spirit of Ann Lee, unruly sisters began to shake, spin and misappropriate the sect's design objects in order to regain the freedom that had been insidiously taken from them over time. An account in which the history of design intersects with rebellion, trance and the creative power of women.