FUTURE SERBIA PROJECT AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUNG DESIGNERS

“BDW 100 % FUTURE SERBIA” PROJECT – AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUNG DESIGNERS

What is the best way to present your creative work and thrive in a country in which design has no future? Roughly hundred and fifty designers were fortunate enough to be a part of the project „BDW 100% Future Serbia“, and had the opportunity for their work to be noticed. In the Belgrade Design Week project, national designers presented their work on a 1m2  space in over one hundred shop windows from Slavija to Kalemegdan, at the Kare studio and at Ušće Shopping Center during the first week of June. The exhibited works were greatly appreciated by the public and caused great interest of national and international media, as well as ongoing interest of national companies.

Today it is not hard to be informed about new trends, but it is challenging to keep up with the world when, in reality, there is no actual infrastructure. With that in mind, it seems that the Serbian design scene is very vital and that designers are much more resourceful than one would expect. They find inspiration in a variety of sources, and their innate resourcefulness enables them to always discover and present the best ideas. That’s why it was of great importance to reward the best participant of the “100% Future Serbia” competition. The grand annual prize was by no means small – a scholarship for the summer course at Domus Academy in Milan, in the amount of EUR 1.750. The candidate was selected by Domus Academy’s expert jury, together with Belgrade Design Week and Nemestic Studio.

– For me, participating in ”BDW 100% Future Serbia” was a really important, one-of-a-kind opportunity to show my ideas, my work and approach to design. This prestigious award is a great honor and incentive for me to persevere in making my dream of artistic work come true. There are few young creatives who have the opportunity to upgrade their know-how in such a reputable institution such as Domus Academy. I hope to use this opportunity in the best possible way, expand my creative horizons and gain new values, said Marko Vučković, the competition winner.

Belgrade Design Week’s mission is to support the formation of a new, liberated, creative community in Serbia and in South-East Europe, and with its project ”BDW 100% Future Serbia” it sets the stage for young designers to show to the world, during one week period, what Serbia has to offer. Out of nearly thousand applicants, 150 were selected and given the opportunity to present their work in the city’s shop windows. Renowned designers, such as Dragana Ognjenović, Antipod Studio, Jelena Stefanović took part in the competition, as well as over a hundred creative people who have been applying every year for the past three years. The opening and award ceremony took place at the Kare studio, at Dorćol district, on June 3rd. In the presence of around 500 guests the best young Serbian designers learned who won free tickets for the BDW Conference, and who won the tickets for the workshop held by the dean of Domus Academy, Gianluigi Ricuperati, animation workshop delivered by the SAE Institute and the Ukrainian-Danish master of collage, Sergei Sviatchenko.

– For me, participation in “BDW 100% Future Serbia” is an opportunity to show to the public my new project in the field of product and furniture design. It is also an opportunity to find a potential producer for the exhibited project, and to see how the passers-by react to my work. I was intrigued by the very possibility for young designers to present their work to the general public in Belgrade shop windows, so I got involved with the project from the start. So far, thanks to the participation in “BDW 100% Future Serbia” my work was published in several national magazines and websites. Exhibiting on this year’s BDW made me particularly happy, because thanks to my project, I got a free ticket to the BDW conference which is a source of inspiration for young designers and the place where we can learn from people who always make us proud to have chosen to become designers, says the awarded participant Sonja Tonev.

The year 2011 marked the debut of Belgrade Design Week’s new project, a one-of-a-kind exhibition the people of Belgrade have never experienced before in this scale. The project called “BDW 100% Future Serbia” is unique in Serbia, and its main purpose is the promotion of the most talented young creative people exhibiting their work for the first time, as well as the promotion of established authors who wish to exhibit under the specific project propositions. It is being organized for the third year in a row, and the idea is to bring exhibitions to the streets where they can be seen by a wider audience, not only people who regularly go to galleries and exhibitions. With this project, BDW supports national design, and by exhibiting in the Belgrade shop windows, it also supports national and city trade in times of crisis, bringing the attention of the media, institutions and the public, for one week, to all the sectors of creative industry. Thanks to this project, all the national, regional and leading world media reported about young Serbian designers who participated in the competition, many of whom presented their work publicly for the very first time. The works of all the participants are collected in a database which shows the features of modern Serbian Design, available at the website http://bdw-wp.its4test.com/100-future-serbia/

– Many authors that took part in 2011 and 2012 applied again to this competition. Congratulations on their enthusiasm. We find it is very important for you to be present on the actual market. You are not artists, you are not painters or athletes, you are the people who push the economy forward, said the Belgrade Design Week founder, Jovan Jelovac, at the project’s opening ceremony.

The ceremony organized to mark the opening of these exhibitions all over the city ended with a special treat for over a hundred visitors: at the city’s best cultural center, KC Grad, BDW demonstrated its cooking creativity. Enjoying tasty bites at Savamala during the event called “Delicious Monday”, the competition participants and young creative people stayed up late exchanging ideas and discussing future projects.