Position Title
Past FRI Fellow
Assistant Professor in Science & Technology Studies
Dr. Perkov is an art historian focusing on the intersection of craft practice and technology. In addition to her scholarly writing, she works on curatorial projects and writes about contemporary art and design.
Her current book project, Prototype Pastoral: Gender, Craft, and Technology, 1965-1980, is an alternative history of art and technology, developed through an examination of studio craft in the 1960s and ‘70s. Focusing on three women who joined emergent technology with traditional handcrafting, her book project demonstrates how craftspeople created prototypes of now-familiar technological objects and spaces. Moreover, she emphasize craft’s rhetorical value for the technology industry, which historically framed computing as craft-like to emphasize a benevolent image. Based in extensive archival research, her project situates these craft prototypes within a network of American art museums, industries, and government agencies. She demonstrate how concepts of femininity and handmaking are embedded in now-ubiquitous notions of creativity and computing.