29.04. – 28.05.2017; Graz.
Susanna Ahvonen has been organising the programme Design in the City as part of the Designmonat Graz for three years now.
What started as a sort of exhibition of Grazbased design stores has become a tightly packed programme that is brimming over with ideas. This is surely also due to the programme’s curator. Susanna Ahvonen, who studied Architecture in Helsinki and Graz, approaches this project in a calm, yet enthusiastic manner that is contagious.
Her work for Design in the City is also a kind of annual remapping of the design city Graz. In the past few years the local design scene has been bustling. For this reasons almost half of the participating studios, workshops and stores take part for the fi rst time each year. The consistent participant limit acts as an additional incentive for participants to develop playfully off beat concepts in addition to their regular programmes.
Barbara Stölzl, for example, designs unique lampshades for her label milli lux, and has started the campaign “shirt rescue“, in which discarded shirts are converted into lamp shades that are really one of a kind (milli lux, Mandellstrasse 4). In her store Lieblingsplatz Sabine Tiefenbrunner sells unique underwear that she imprints with erotic cartoons according to customers’ wishes, under the slogan “Expression of yourself“ (Sporgasse 23). And Arno Körbler and Stefan Krar from Crazy Home Town present clothes made out of paper (Paulustorgasse 3). We hope that they’re waterproof too.
Of course such a lively scene also attracts international trend and idea scouts. This is why it seems only natural that the Red Bull group has chosen to establish itself in the City of Design. Red Bull has opened its own Alpha Tauri Store (sic) in Graz and follows the creative minds in Graz by creating an event for the Designmonat Graz that centres on technology and fashion. Red Bull’s notoriously apolitical ideology, however, contrasts with that of many Graz-based designers, who also support political and social issues, and who will presumably not let themselves be engrossed or their ideologies be re-shaped easily by this newcomer.
Blogger and designer Kathrin Jummer, for example, is the owner of the – in her own words – offline shop himmelgrau based in Feuerbachgasse (Graz). She compares her business to a boat in which one can unwind while working on the side, so to say. Work there mostly takes place in a community. For Design in the City Kathrin Jummer has invited the Graz-based startup company “Wolke Neun”, who in turn invite to a “Baby Shower Launch Party“. Which new ideas will be born there?
INFO Designmonat Graz 2017 29.04. – 28.05.2017 www.designmonat.at SELECTED 2017 29.04. – 28.05.2017 Naturkundemuseum, Joanneumsviertel Klanglicht 29.04. – 30.04.2017, abends Schauspielhaus Graz, Oper Graz, Next Liberty, Dom im Berg, Stadtpark CITY-OF-DESIGN-Rundgänge Nächste Termine: 22.04., 20.05., 17.06.2017 jeweils 11.00 Nähere Infos: www.grazguides.at
