Today Monday 23rd September, Dundee Design Festival opens its doors to celebrate the city’s 10th anniversary as the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design. Over 180 designers are set to flock to Dundee for the largest celebration of contemporary Scottish design.
The festival, curated by Dr Stacey Hunter, has transformed 10,000 sq metres of the former Michelin tyre factory on the outskirts of the city into a hub of free exhibitions, workshops, talks and events. Welcoming visitors of all ages, the festival theme of ‘Multiplicity’ spotlights the multiple ways design plays a role in our lives.
Dundee Design Festival’s 5th edition is the most ambitious to date in terms of scale, sustainability and impact for Scotland’s design community. The week-long free event running from 23 - 29 September will feature ten installations and exhibitions including a fabric maze, customisable uniforms, Tiny Home interior ideas and FRAMEWORK, an exhibition providing a snapshot of Scottish design with over 70 designs. Hands-on activities include a host of workshops on everything from sustainable interiors to fabric printing, woolly beastie making and even lace design and production. The talks programme includes insights from leading Scottish designers such as Donna Wilson and Timorous Beasties as well as industrial designers David Keating and Sam Prentice of Sonos, leading Artificial Intelligence academic from Abertay University, Dr Martin Zeilinger and sustainable biophilic interior designer Alicia Storie.
Visitors to the festival can discover new and existing works in lighting, homewares, furniture, textiles, product design, graphic design, jewellery, fashion, digital technology and sound.
Creative Director of Dundee Design Festival, Dr Stacey Hunter said:
“Understanding the value of design changes the way we see the world. Whether it’s the jewellery we wear, the furniture we sit on, or the buildings we visit, good design makes our lives better.From graphic design to products, interiors, creative technology and more Scotland’s designers continue to punch above their weight. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Dundee’s UNESCO City of Design status I wanted to put a spotlight on that talent and help festival goers see Scotland’s strength as a design nation. Our designers receive world class training in our design schools, benefit from strong connections to manufacturing and wider industry and their international outlook continues to see them at the forefront of global conversations on design.
Design is one of the most accessible expressions of 21st-century creativity and design festivals like ours support Scotland’s exciting design culture.
For this year’s festival we have championed this talent in a way that’s fun and accessible. Visitors can join Timorous Beasties to print their own textiles, get to grips with sustainable interior design in our Tiny House installations or see first hand the breadth and variety of Scottish design talent in our exhibitions. Design is not elitist, it touches every part of our lives and we can all engage with it. For a week at Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc we invite everyone to discover contemporarydesign in Dundee, in Scotland and alongside work from other UNESCO Cities of Design.
Across Scotland, world class designers of all disciplines are pushing the boundaries of innovation, creative expression, collaboration and material exploration. We were keen to bring all of that talent under one roof at Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc. As we have been preparing for the fetival it’s been a privilege to see this work up close and experience the generosity of the design community and wider industry. This generosity has allowed us to do what Scottish designers do best; work together, maximise resources and embrace opportunity, enabling us to deliver one of the world’s most sustainable design festivals.”
The world’s most sustainable design festival?
The former factory site has been transformed with sustainability at the heart of the festival. Using electricity from the onsite wind turbines every aspect of the festival’s build and delivery has been powered by green energy. Transport partner Ember can bring audiences to the festival on electric buses from Dundee City Centre, Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The majority of the festival build has used salvaged or repurposed materials smashing the festival’s initial target of 30% virgin materials. The commitment to becoming one of the world’s most sustainable design festivals saw the Scottish design and manufacturing community answer a call for support and make generous donations to the festival.
Exhibition materials from V&A Dundee and Bard have been repurposed for the festival, Halley Stevenson, KC Collective and Sseams have worked with offcuts and deadstock of waxed cotton for the staff and volunteer clothing, Craig & Rose paints have donated mistinted paint stock as have Crown Decorators in Dundee. Creative Director Dr Stacey Hunter has chosen an industrial materials palette for the festival using materials that were available on site or sourced locally that can be repurposed after the festival. This has been added to with donations from MYT Textiles of over 1500sqm of fabric; steel cabling donated by Timorous Beasties and innovative hook and loop textiles from Scott & Fyffe for Gabriella Marcella’s Challenging Uniformity installation.
Food and beverages at the festival have also been supplied with sustainability in mind. All food is made onsite, from locally and sustainably sourced ingredients. All cold beverages are being served in aluminium cans which are recycled daily in the recycling plant next to the festival site. Finally the festival’s bar builds are courtesy of Mirrl who have donated high quality materials to create two bars and a variety of plinths using their iconic surface materials.
Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said:
“The Dundee Design Festival is a celebration of innovation, design, and creativity. This year’s event highlights the extraordinary talent of our designers and their commitment to sustainability and forward-thinking practices. “As Scotland’s Climate Week starts, it is important to recognise that Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc, which is hosting the event, is powered by 100% renewable energy. “It has been fascinating to see all of the cutting-edge exhibitions, we are not just celebrating the past decade of Dundee’s design legacy, but inspiring the next generation of creators to push the boundaries of what’s possible in a sustainable fashion.”
Exhibitions programme includes:
MATERIALISE sees the festival host a series of large scale installations making the most of the vast factory site. Glasgow based designers Timorous Beasties have created a fabric maze, Donna Wilson, a woolly wonderland, AdesignStorie, an interactive materials display inspired by a Tiny Homes and Gabriella Marcella introduces a display of interchangeable colourful uniforms. Each installation also encourages visitors to get hands on through activities in making printing, and other forms of design discovery.
In the exhibition BOOKENDS, these include 20 newly commissioned bookends inspired by the adventures of pioneering journalists Bessie Maxwell and Marie Imandt who left Dundee to travel the world as the first female foreign correspondents in 1894. The selected designers took inspiration for their designs from the landscapes they encountered, the cultural differences the writers discovered, the impact of their writing and more.
As part of HYPER-LOCAL festival goers can discover international design indelibly linked to seven other UNESCO Cities of Design alongside Dundee’s own contributions. These include fashion from Nagoya in Japan, furniture and lighting from Kortrijk in Belgium, homewares from Bilbao in Spain which will be soundtracked to records created at Third Man Pressing, a state-of-the-art vinyl pressing plant in the heart of Detroit’s historic Cass Corridor neighbourhood. Dundonian designs include Hannah Sabapathy’s Taxonomy collection, a new paving design for the city by Gary Kennedy and Linsey McIntosh and Donna Wilson’s Jute Jam and Journalism sweater in lambswool.
FRAMEWORK, a showcase of over 70 Scotland based designers is a unique snapshot of contemporary Scottish design illustrating the multiplicity of ways that design overlaps and intersects with other artforms and industries. Designs on show includes reusable camper van interiors developed in Benbecula by Robert Hall and Martin Campbell, insect inspired jewellery design from Caitlin Dolan of Dundee, modular lighting pendant design by David Ross and Mirrl, aircraft seat covers designed by Jamie Donald with neurodivergent passengers in mind and host of furniture pieces including the BLT coffee table by Clare Bridget Morris of Glasgow (featured on C4’s Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker) as well as new rug designs from Aberdeen and London based Granite and Smoke.
Further exhibitions and installations in graphic design, digital tech, sustainable materials include ideas and prototypes shared by Scotland based designers in PROCESS, an installation of seashell based tiles from Skye based CLIMAVORE, a journey through colour from paper experts G . F SMITH and designer Dean Brown’s LOST & FOUND exploring the potential of digital fabrication technologies to bring obsolete and defunct objects to life.
Executive Director and UNESCO City of Design lead Annie Marrs said;
“Dundee has a particular way of doing things. It is often described as a goldilocks city - just right - for collaborations and partnerships. As such, I believe there is no other festival or event like this in Scotland. Over the years we have grown in ambition and worked to secure specialist design curators who can take the festival to its next level. Dundee Design Festival has developed in such a way that it suits empty, unusual spaces, and each time we try to do something different. This year, we've been delighted at the amount of support we've had, not only across Dundee, but also across Scotland. Dundee is truly on the radar of designers as our reputation grows.”
“I look forward to seeing this impact first hand at the festival this week and how visitors find their own way of engaging with the festival. Design has the capacity to reach so many people in so many different ways. As a UNESCO City of Design Lead Officer, I’m also honoured to be hosting design works from city partners across the network allowing visitors to the festival to understand Dundee’s place in the international design landscape.”
“The international, national and local partnerships have empowered the festival team to produce a festival that is a fitting celebration of Dundee’s 10th anniversary as the UK’s only City of Design. We invite everybody to join us for a fun and inspiring week at Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc.”
Free activities talks and events
Throughout the week the festival will run a programme of free events and activities for visitors to get involved with, from family drop-ins, to design workshops for newbies, to industry networking. Visitor can explore the potential of A.I. to improve our world for The World is Beautiful again Workshop, or learn the secrets of biophilic design for interiors with Alicia Storie or add Timorous Beasties designs to their own bags, t-shirts or fabric. Young at heart visitors Industry talks and events include insights from Timorous Beasties, Donna Wilson, Gabriella Marcella, Sonos designers David Keating and Sam Prentice, design writer Gabriella Bennett, Associate Professor of Jewellery Kerianne Quick and Dr Martin Zeilinger, Reader in Computational Arts & Technology at Abertay University.
Dundee Design Festival 2024
Open daily 10am - 6pm (10am - 7pm on Thursday 26th)
23 - 29 September
Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc, Baldovie Rd, Dundee DD4 8UQ
For further information and updates about the festival go to dundeedesignfestival.com
@dnd_designfest