Last year, Marcin Wicha published an excellent and subversive book called "Jak przestałem kochać design" [How I Ceased to Love Design]. The author shares a number of intriguing points as he examines the last four decades in the history of Polish design. Some of them are rather poignant. "Design is to make you shy. To discipline you. To bring you down a peg or two. To preserve hierarchy," says the author, and he is often right. So what can you for design not to be compared with all things trendy, luxury or art of art's sake?
This and many other questions will be explored (through exhibitions, meetings and workshops) by the organisers of the third edition of Wroclove Design, or the International Festival of Good Design, which starts on 18 May and will continue until 22 May, in a new location at the empty spaces of the Bielany Wroclawskie Shopping Centre. This year's festival idea: "For Sale: Design" shifts focus on genuine human needs and the way design can help to fulfil them. In many cases, a nice packaging does not reflect the product's value. This also applies to food. That is why Wroclove Design is going to explore Food Design as one of its topics, but there will also be interesting opportunities for children (e.g. workshops) and demos featuring design for technology (e.g. Mikifon created by the Polish collective Pan Generator dla Disneya) and design for art.
One of the most intriguing exhibitions as part of the festival showcases 150 years of design in Austria (to refresh our memory of Ingenious Art Nouveau in Vienna!). Additionally, the programme provides for Q&A sessions with the guests, including Robert Majkut, who is also called a Polish Philip Starck and whose interior design at a luxury cinema in China fetched 100 thousand euros. Crowds are now flocking in to the Beijing cinema.
