Reviews: 2023

FOKUS

Design is the conception of objects that are manufactured in industrial series. But this isn’t always the case! In their work, many designers don’t necessarily strive to scale up their ideas but, rather, devote themselves to producing a limited number of items – or even a single one. With the tools of design – but also with those of handcraft or art – they seek out the extraordinary and the poetic, and impressions that lie beyond normal product cycles. In order to offer an arena to this focus on outstanding objects, the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK launched the group exhibition format FOKUS in 2022. Every year, a guest curator makes a selection from the local and international responses to a specific subject and the selected submissions are presented together in the Festival Headquarters. A key element of this process is the specially commissioned spatial presentation, which brings together these selected objects and enables them to fully express themselves.

For this second edition of FOKUS, the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK secured the services of the London-based curator Laura Houseley, who addresses this year’s subject in her design for the eponymously named group exhibition THE SERIES. The scenography is the work of Dóra Medveczky.