Reviews: 2021
PROGRAM PARTNERS 2021
Fleckerlteppich (patchwork quilt) is the good old Austrian expression for something colorful that appears to have been randomly thrown together. And, given the contentual, formal, geographic, and didactic diversity of the presented contributions, it is hardly surprising that the format Program Partners sometimes seems like such a patchwork quilt – but this is far too simplistic. After all, it is precisely this colorful patchwork that, year after year, covers the entire city as a homogeneous programmatic network, presenting the festival audience with a sort of living room that stretches far beyond the borders of the neighborhood and the district.
From international companies (Rado, LAUFEN) to Vienna museums (MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Imperial Furniture Collection), from new crushes (Le Nomade Berberteppiche, Design in Gesellschaft, Benjamin Nagy & Anton Defant, ka.ma interior design) to reliable regulars (rauminhalt_harald bichler space & content, HDS59, Kohlmaier), from international talent factories (Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design Kiel, Academic Design Center – Akademickie Centrum Designu) to Austrian alma maters (New Design University (NDU) St. Pölten, University of Applied Arts, TU Wien) – 50 local and international Program Partners presented themselves and their work in over 59 locations during the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2021 with contributions that were specially developed for the festival.
The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK once again provided a platform, upon which much was created, in interaction with its visitors, that cannot be experienced anywhere else: project presentations, artworks, experiments, exhibitions, pop-ups, events, product presentations, performances, workshops, installations, education programs, talks, and much, much more. This program, which was organized autonomously by the partners and put together by the festival team, not only illustrated the crème-de-la-crème of the Austrian creative industries and their international contacts, but also took visitors to the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK on a tour of a City Full of Design.