Belgrade Design Week Festival 2007

Why is BDW in Belgrade again and why is the conference exactly named change²?

There are two reasons: 1) above all, due to the outstanding success of the last year’s festival and the conference brand² organized at the Sava Centre, and 2) because it is extremely important that, in the region with 50 million people, from Milan to Istanbul, and in its central point, Belgrade, design and creativity account for the change of the world: new communications, the new democracy, new thoughts – as well as the new life and new possibilities, especially for “small nations” and “new states”. If the world wishes South Eastern Europe to be successful – it must come to Belgrade to show us what is good and attainable in the near future. If we want to join the world – we must visit the change², to learn, write down, dream … and make use of these experiences.

Changes that shape the new world can be in the best way noticed in creative disciplines, which long for them by default, but now those changes become the key drivers of the overall modern economy. BDW is thereby an ideal “store window” of global production CHANGES, in which the whole region traditionally meets once a year, and in the course of that week, just as in the time of ancient Olympics, one attends, on neutral ground, an intense course on how to enter modern global tendencies and how to succeed on the increasingly competitive local and global market . In addition, the last year’s guests, now ambassadors of BDW, such as Peter Saville, Jan Rijkenberg, Eugenio Perazza, KasselsKramer, Landor, Miles Newlyn, Dejan Sudjic, Metadesign, Ben Evans and others, have actually set us an extremely high standards: to convene on one place, in Belgrade, lecturers that have never and nowhere been gathered together before. We managed it last year; it seems that we are going to be even better this year. Unbelievable!

Welcome to square changes.

The chairman of the festival

Jovan Jelovac