Festival programme of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2009
raises appetite for design by using fresh formats
Eleven day design festival from October 1st to 11th in Vienna, Austria
On Wednesday June 24th, the “Neigungsgruppe Design” presented the festival
programme of the third VIENNA DESIGN WEEK in Vienna, which once more invites to
experiencing design in everyday life from October 1st to 11th. Newly developed formats
as “VDW Lab”, “VDW Debut” and “VDW Carte Blanche” add to the successful portfolio
of talks, presentations and exhibitions.
“VDW Lab”
With “VDW Lab”, young product -, industrial -, and graphic designers receive a
prominent platform at the project space of the KUNSTHALLE on Karlsplatz. Invited by
“Neigungsgruppe Design”, organiser of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, and guest curator and
communication designer Erwin Bauer, project teams work on-site on special projects.
Thus, visitors of the laboratory get to experience individual operating processes and
approaches in an open studio situation. At the same time, the location serves as
festival headquarters for exchange, meetings, and the gathering of programme
information.
“VDW Debut”
Ten chosen design students and design alumni, who graduated no longer than three
years ago, present their works in the context of “VDW Debut”, supported by the
internationally renowned James Dyson Foundation and James Dyson Award. The
projects of young product -, and industrial designers, who beforehand submitted for
the James Dyson Award, are going to be displayed at Vorgartenmarkt in the
Stuwerviertel neighbourhood. Furthermore, in this once notorious and now more
hipper Stuwerviertel, one focus of this year’s PASSIONSWEGE is located. This design
path across the first and second city district with ten stops in total can be discovered
on foot as the centrepiece of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK.
The aim of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is to show creative work in the fields of product, furniture and industrial design, and also experimental design. After two successful festivals in 2007 and 2008, this October an exquisite and colourful programme of events will be awaiting visitors. Design has been and is an important field in the production of culture: it shapes our material culture, our everyday life and our consumer world, it influences our lifestyles and fashions and most fundamentally our aesthetic sense and judgements. This wide-ranging impact is a reason both to celebrate design and to examine it critically, and VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has made both of these its mission.
