The 26th Biennial of Design, BIO 26 – Common Knowledge, curated by Austrian design curator and cultural producer Thomas Geisler together with assistant curator Aline Lara Rezende, is taking on one of the greatest challenges of our time: information.
For the Biennial of Design we are commissioning six projects. The projects were selected through a designathon process—a three-day intensive, hands-on, sprint event in which curious and motivated people, non-designers and designers alike, collaborated on design challenges.
Seventy-eight participants selected through the BIO 26 open call engaged in the second round of selection at Designathon #1, which took place in May in Ljubljana. Nominated in eighteen teams, they had the opportunity to work with prominent designers and knowledge mentors from six different partnering institutions of knowledge production and knowledge transmission in Ljubljana—a library, museum, university, retirement home, botanical garden, and newspaper—to create innovative solutions for the challenges proposed in the designathon.
An international jury of prominent experts selected the best projects by institution to progress to the next phase:
1. Library
Group challenge: How can knowledge exchange between the National Library and external sites open access and add new value to the collection?
Participants: Thomas Hügin, Maja Kolar, Yuxi Liu, Alicia Lu Lin, Motong Yang, Špela Pavli Perko
Design mentors: Commonplace Studio
Knowledge mentors: Žiga Cerkvenik, Irena Eiselt, Janko Klasinc
2. Museum
Group challenge: How can visitors reconnect with the essential physicality of dance at the Temporary Slovene Dance Archive at MSUM?
Participants: Cyrus Clarke, Juliana Lewis, Monika Seyfried, Matevž Straus
Design mentor: Paolo Patelli
Knowledge mentor: Ida Hiršenfelder
3. University
Group challenge: Can a new knowledge production program stimulate exchange between faculties and civic actors to negotiate hierarchies and to give value to the everyday life of students and professors?
Participants: Gențiana Dumitrașcu, Adrian Judt, Simon Platzgummer, Andreja Pogačar, Janja Štorgelj
Design mentor: Apolonija Šušteršič
Knowledge mentor: Tomaž Deželan
4. Retirement Home
Group challenge: How to rethink retirement
Participants: Guendalina Ballerini, Rebecca Carrai, Emilia Izquierdo, Natalia Skoczylas, Barbara Peterca
Design mentor: Kathrina Dankl
Knowledge mentors: Monika Šparl, Matija Puškarič, Monika Vrhovnik Hribar
5. Botanical Garden
Group challenge: How to create a living seed bank
Participants: Eliza Chojnacka, Kamila Kantek, Gabriela Szalanska, Aleš Kobe
Design mentors: Futurefarmers
Knowledge mentors: Jože Bavcon, Blanka Ravnjak
6. Newspaper: Group 3
Group challenge: How to use news archives as a new stakeholder in the media landscape to re-value news institutions
Participants: Maxime Benvenuto, Petra Matić, Aneta Pawlik, José Pérez, Zuzanna Zgierska, Jurka Mihelin
Design mentors: Bureau d’études
Knowledge mentor: Ali Žerdin
The six winning teams listed above will participate in a second designathon—prototype to product—taking place from July 12th to 14th in Ljubljana. Their projects will receive funds to be developed further into validated prototypes, installations, services, or systems to be exhibited during the biennial.
From November 14th, 2019 to February 9th, 2020 in Ljubljana, the 26th Biennial of Design, BIO 26 – Common Knowledge, will present the outcomes of the exploratory work of the winning teams at various locations in Ljubljana, complementing the main exhibition at MAO and accompanied by a special catalogue.