BDW DIZAJNLABS WORKSHOPS & MASTERCLASSES
The international PKS DIZAJNLABS™ workshops are one of the key segments of the Belgrade Design Week, with the main purpose to provide free educational sessions for creative professionals and training for businesspeople in Serbia, initiate cooperation and introduce Serbian designers with entrepreneurs, and to promote values and opportunities that creative industries generally bring to the Serbian economy. The PKS DIZAJNLABS™ took place on 7th and 8th October in the old Staklopan factory in Strahinjića Bana Street 7 -9 in Belgrade. They were produced in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Serbia, demonstrating an important new step in collaboration between the Chamber and the creative industries.
Bojana Drača / Germany opened the PKS DIZAJNLABS. The focus of her workshop Ethical fashion was informing and educating consumers about the origin of their clothing and the production chain, as well as finding solutions to change their behaviour. It offered information and insight into textile production through the whole supply chain, as well as some solutions from the perspective of a fashion designer.
Satya Sheel / Metro Valley / India held a workshop titled Democracy & Urban Planning, which was intended for architects, urban planners, sociologists and economists. He highlighted some of the challenges citizens and cities face and presented Metro Valley’s solutions to facilitate debate on the rights of equitable access and growth for citizens, which could, hopefully, further the evolution and strengthening of democracy through urban planning strategies.
Topic of the workshop: Culture management by Galit Gaon, Chief curator of Design Museum Holon / Israel, intended for professionals in the field of culture, was the financing and successful management of museums, from the business perspective. Gaon shared her opinion on curators, as a very important part of every museum and exhibition. Curators have to be the storytellers, mediators between the public and whatever is happening in the museum, who have to make visitors wonder why they chose the objects in particular exhibition. Participants of this workshop also learned why museum should become a space for debate and critical thinking, and how will frequent visit to the museum affect one’s perception of the world.
The focus of the workshop Digital Design by Gavrilo Božović / Switzerland was the cooperation between designers and engineers in the fields of art, which significantly increases the range of media available for expression. The goal of this workshop was to present some experiments in different fields, alongside with works by other artists and designers. It was a starting point for a conversation around new practices, their opportunities and their shortcomings. The discussion was supplemented by many experiences brought by the audience.
At the Serbian Architecture workshop, i.e. 100 Creative Playgrounds for the Children of Serbia, BDW and MADA Architects from Belgrade explained how they built the first Serbian designed playground in Belgrade, Kalemegdan, and showed the plans for another 99 new playgrounds. Other speakers at the workshop were the City architect Milutin Folić, Director of the Belgrade office of the company LAMDA development, Boris Tancabelić, and representative of the Finnish Embassy, Outi Isotalo.
On Wednesday the 8th October, Belgrade Design Week visitors attended the inspiring workshop: Business of Design by Bleed / Norway, in which Astrid Feldner explored the following questions: What is the meaning of sense in design? How many rules do we need to follow? What defines the border between art and design?
The workshop Branding & Entrepreneurship by Saša Vidaković /UK, designed for creative directors, entrepreneurs and brand owners, designers, branding and marketing executives, by the award-winning Serbian graphic designer from London. Years of experience in working with the world’s most prominent brands (Harrods, Victoria Beckham, Ossie Clark, Feragammo, Zegna, WWF, Alfa Romeo, Novo Nordisk, Azimut|Benetti yachts, Macmillan publishers, Volvo, Ideal Standard, P&G), resulted in a inspiring story about branding in the modern fast-paced world.
On the same day, three more workshops took place – How to realize your potential by Ivan Živković, The School of Life Belgrade, was an inspiring discussion on finding one’s purpose and living up to one’s potential. The recession has challenged many of our personal values. As a result, many of us are now reappraising the things that really matter to us. While a classes on finding a job you love and making a difference deal with specific issues of career and social action, this class explored our potential in a more free-form, imaginatively free-wheeling way. Above all, the idea was to help participants locate their principal passions and grow their seed ideas into absorbing leisure activities or even a change of vocation.
The workshop Food Design by Ido Garini / Studio Appetit / NL was an interactive presentation and tasting that will manifest the unique approach to eating while combining multidisciplinary design with culinary arts, from challenging table manners to rethinking the connection between taste and emotion. Studio Appétit, instead of just designing or cooking, created a concept called APPETITING, using design to transform an object, ingredient or experience into an appetizing sensation. Raising questions about food culture, about why we eat, what we eat and how we eat, and observing the never ending roles of food in our lives.
Finally, a Workshop for entrepreneurs and designers: Design Entrepreneurship held by Marc Viardot from Switzerland, a leading Swiss design impresario who helped bring LAUFEN to global success. The love and passion of designing, developing and communicating products, building brands and leading people in a creative process follow through Marc Viardot’s professional history like a red string – starting in 2002 with a Master’s degree of Business and Economic Studies with a focus in Marketing at the Albert-Ludwig-University of Freiburg in Germany. Marc talked about design management, design leadership, from savoir-faire to innovation, from brand building to sales and over all under the umbrella of cooperations…
