- It’s time for Scotland to take its place as a “Design Nation” said Creative Director, Dr Stacey Hunter
- New benchmark for design festivals set as less than 15% of the festival build and delivery required new materials
- 10th anniversary of Dundee’s status of UNESCO City of Design celebrated in style as over 10,000 festival goers attend week long celebration
Visitors take in the FRAMEWORK exhibition at Dundee Design Festival 2024 at Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc photo by Grant Anderson
Organisers of Dundee Design Festival today reiterated their commitment to delivering the world's most sustainable design festival as they released results of their targets set in advance of this year's festival.
The 5th Dundee Design Festival ran from 23-29 September and in celebration of the city’s status as the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design it boasted a bigger programme than ever featuring the work of over 180 designers showcased in a series of exhibitions, talks and events. Just over 10,000 visitors attended the festival travelling locally, from across Scotland and the UK and internationally.
Festival goers flocked to see a snapshot of contemporary Scottish design which featured over 70 design objects from lighting to furniture, jewellery to fashion and textiles as well as industrial design and everything including sustainable campervan fit outs and pioneering uses of 3D printing. Visitors found themselves immersed in installations from Gabriella Marcella, Timorous Beasties, Donna Wilson, Gabriella Marcella and ADesignStorie. Hundreds of visitors got hands-on with design, screen printing, making over 700 woolly beasties and even dancing on Biome Collective’s Street Pixel installation.
Workshops included playing with A.I. for urban improvement, biophilic interior design and a city photo tour. The festival’s talks programme welcomed over 1000 attendees who took inspiration from designers and curators working across textiles, interiors, urban co-design and jewellery amongst others. Thursday 26th September was Designers Day and over 100 designers working in Scotland today came together to celebrate Scotland’s thriving design sector.
Throughout the week, there were 30 school and community groups which visited the festival. This included local schools, Glebelands Primary, Downfield Primary, Rosebank Primary, Craigie High and Braeview Academy as well as students from Abertay University, University of Dundee and Glasgow School of Art. Access to Creative Education (ACES) group also brought young people from across Scotland to the festival as a source of inspiration towards their future careers.
Taking place in 10,000 sq metres of former factory space powered completely by clean energy, festival organisers announced their commitment to deliver one of the world’s most sustainable design festivals. A commitment to use no more than 30% of virgin materials in the build and delivery saw only 15% of new materials used for the festival. Unnecessary temporary signage and festival infrastructure were avoided as exhibition materials (donated by V&A Dundee and Bard) were repurposed for the event and have now been disassembled for further use. Craig & Rose paints donated mistinted paint stock as have Crown Decorators in Dundee which were used to paint MDF elements while all timber frames used in plinths remained unpainted to aid reuse.
Creative Director Dr Stacey Hunter chose 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 was 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.
Visitors to the festival made the most of emissions free transport provided by Ember’s fleet of electric buses and Halley Stevenson, KC Collective and Sseams worked with offcuts and deadstock of waxed cotton for the staff and volunteer clothing
Food and beverages at the festival have also been supplied with sustainability in mind. All food was made onsite, from locally and sustainably sourced ingredients. All cold beverages were served in aluminium cans which were 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 from previous builds to create two bars and a variety of plinths using their iconic surface materials.
Speaking following the delivery of a successful festival, Creative Director Dr Stacey Hunter said; “The festival has been really important in terms of platforming the Scottish design scene which more than punches above its weight. For a country of 6 million people our design scene stands shoulder to shoulder for many other nations that think of themselves as design nations. Seeing this talent all in one space confirms that it's time for Scotland to take its seat at the table as a design nation. We've got people doing pioneering work around sustainability. We've got so much talent, and that is across craft, product design, jewellery to name just a few areas.
For me, the most important outcome from the design community here or people who are visiting, is that designers really feel with this festival that they are celebrated and appreciated and I believe with this year’s festival we have done that.”
Annie Marrs, Executive Director of the festival and UNESCO City of Design Dundee Lead Officer said: “To celebrate our 10th anniversary as the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design we wanted to do something really special. Working with Dr Stacey Hunter, we set ambitious goals for not the scale of the festival but how it could be delivered sustainably. The design community in Dundee and across Scotland responded with huge generosity without which the festival could not have been the success it was. Donations of materials, time, space and financial resources allowed us to showcase more designers, deliver thousands more design interactions and provide context to the incredible design talent on our doorstep which many visitors were discovering for the first time. Dundee’s industrial past and design present and future whether in textiles, publishing, tech, gaming and product design has always been underpinned by innovation. This year’s festival has shown visitors where innovation is taking us today whether in leading the way on sustainability or pushing the boundaries of what’s possible through design.
With 25% of designers sharing their work at the festival based in and around Dundee I am delighted that we have hosted a festival on their doorstep so their work is platformed alongside leading designers with international reach. I want to thank the designers, festival team, sponsors and supporters for reminding us what makes Dundee such a fantastic UNESCO City of Design.”
Clive Gillman, Director of Creative Industries at Creative Scotland said: “The work of the team behind this year’s design festival has offered audiences a fascinating variety of work presented in engaging and dynamic ways over the 7 days. The Dundee Design Festival has constantly reinvented itself and taken on board the principles of design in its execution – who is this for?, what do we want to say?, what will it mean for people? – and this year we are left with the unalloyed perception that design, the largest and most far-reaching of our creative industries, is going to be playing a significant part in a sustainable creative future for all of us.”
Dundee Design Festival was supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, by EventScotland’s National Events Programme, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Northwood Charitable Trust. UNESCO City of Design Dundee is hosted by V&A Dundee and supported by city partners: Abertay University, Creative Dundee, Dundee City Council, Leisure & Culture Dundee and V&A Dundee.
For further information and updates about the festival go to dundeedesignfestival.com @dnd_designfest
Background
In helping to build a stronger understanding of the current and future role of design in Scotland, an independent research report commissioned by V&A Dundee in partnership with and funded by Creative Scotland will shortly be published. This report explores what design can do for Scotland, and what Scotland can do for design.
Why is Dundee the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design?
Dundee Design Festival 2024 (DDF 24) will celebrate the city's 10th anniversary as a UNESCO City of Design by working with local and international partners to present an ambitious and optimistic programme of design-centred exhibitions, events and projects. Dundee was the first and remains the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design, one of a global network of 49 cities around the world. This status recognises the city’s diverse contributions to design in fields including comics, textiles, medical innovation and video games. In addition to hosting public facing design events like the biennial festival, Dundee is the only city in Scotland to have its own dedicated design museum; V&A Dundee as well as two leading art and design universities and Dundee & Angus College who co-founded the UK’s first Service Design Academy with Open Change. The city has a thriving Creative Industries sector with a variety of design related businesses.
Dundee’s Design Community at the Festival
As the UK’s first and only UNESCO City of Design, Dundee has a diverse and vibrant design community. This year’s festival showcased design talent local to the city with 50 designers sharing new and existing work at the festival.
These included; Hannah Sabapathy’s Taxonomies patterned furniture and Linsey McIntosh & Gary Kennedy’s Dundee Cassies paving slabs for HYPER-LOCAL, BOOKENDS designs by Aymeric Renoud, Louise Forbes, Akiko Matsuda, Camillo Feuchter and Lauren Morsley, FRAMEWORK designs from Caitlin Dolan, Jo-AMI, Sandra Wilson, Rhona Jack, Yimou Huang and more.
Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) Graphic Design graduates saw their work featured in Emerging Design x Real World Projects, an exhibition of graphic design resulting from close partnership working between DJCAD and Dundee Design Festival. 14 students contributed visual concepts for DDF festival signage and marketing with the winner receiving £2000 and a work placement with the festival team. To celebrate the graphic designers of tomorrow and to mark the partnership with DJCAD, the competition entries were exhibited in a display of highly distinctive and expressive concepts for Scotland's design festival.
About Dr Stacey Hunter
Stacey Hunter curates, writes and produces within a contemporary design context; her collaborative exhibitions and projects are known and appreciated for their unconventional approach and broad appeal. She is committed to the development of design culture in Scotland and enlivening design and craft discourses. Stacey founded Local Heroes to present the work of outstanding designers working in Scotland and collaborates with a diverse range of organisations from airports and cultural hubs to hotels, hospitals and design-led businesses.
Her PhD was awarded by The University of Edinburgh’s Architecture School in 2015. In 2017 V&A Dundee named her a Design Champion; in 2018 she won Creative Edinburgh’s Leadership Award and in 2019 she was selected by Cove Park; Arts Initiative Tokyo and Creative Residency Arita to visit Japan for two months as design curator in residence. Later that year she was a designer in residence at The Suttie Art Space in Aberdeen. During lockdown Hunter was a curator in
virtual-residence at Edinburgh’s Design Informatics / Inspace Gallery. In 2021 she produced the critically acclaimed The Future of Home exhibition in Brompton Design District as part of London Design Festival. In 2022 Craft Scotland commissioned Hunter to produce ‘Sustaining Curatorial Careers’ a research report exploring the key role curators play in sustaining and innovating Scotland’s ecosystem for contemporary craft. In 2023 Hunter launched PROCESS, a professional development programme for a cohort of five designers. www.localheroes.design www.staceyhunter.com
About UNESCO City of Design Dundee
Dundee Design Festival 2024 is delivered by UNESCO City of Design Dundee. UNESCO City of Design Dundee is delivered through the Dundee Partnership and hosted by V&A Dundee.
Dundee was designated a UNESCO Creative City in 2014. As the UK’s first and only UNESCO City of Design, Dundee upholds the values of UNESCO and publicly champions our city’s commitment to placing design at the heart of our local development plans and to global cooperation working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Dundee’s title recognises the small yet dynamic city with a strong cultural identity and a history of design, innovation and creativity. The city has time and time again focused on design and creativity to build sustainable economic growth. From the jute industry of the 19th & 20th Century through to post-war electrical and mechanical engineering, the city's design story includes household favourites the Beano and the Dandy, marmalade and Grand Theft Auto.
Today, Dundee is home to a cutting edge life sciences sector, a dynamic digital media industry, world-renowned higher education institutions and a vibrant creative industries sector. Dundee is a city which is bold, ambitious and committed to using design to help solve the challenges we face - locally and globally.
Currently there are 49 UNESCO Cities of Design, including Bangkok, Bilbao, Detroit, Graz, Helsinki, Kobe, Mexico City, Montreal,Singapore, Seoul and Wuhan.
UNESCO City of Design Dundee: https://cityofdesigndundee.com
UNESCO Cities of Design Network: https://www.designcities.net/
About Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc
MSIP is a dynamic and creative home for innovators, manufacturers and skills leaders who are actively working towards reducing carbon emissions and fostering a cleaner, more sustainable future. They offer space to manufacture and scale up; business, skills and innovation support; and access to green energy from sustainable sources.
A joint venture with 3 partners: Michelin, Dundee City Council, and Scottish Enterprise. Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc (MSIP) was created to generate economic growth in Scotland and support a fair and just transition to a net zero economy. The 32-hectare site offers excellent physical and digital connectivity, and dynamic space for all sizes of businesses to locate.
Hosting Dundee Design Festival as a venue partner is the organisation’s latest commitment to working in partnership to highlight Dundee as a centre for design and innovation. https://www.msipdundee.com
About UNESCO Creative Cities
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. It is a global network of cities working towards the joint mission of placing creativity and cultural industries at the core of their urban development to make their cities safe, resilient, inclusive and sustainable.
There are 7 Creative City categories: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts and Music and 13 UNESCO Creative Cities. Their work supports local communities and creates international opportunities, bringing an estimated £2.6 million in economic value to the UK. Recent research by the UK National Commission for UNESCO shows UNESCO projects can help build a greener, more equal and more peaceful world, while also creating financial value.
The cities form part of a larger global network made up of 350 member cities spanning seven artforms, with the city of Edinburgh, UK being the founding member of the Network.
Creative Cities work to strengthen the creation, production, distribution, and enjoyment of cultural goods and services at the local level, to promote creativity and creative expression especially among vulnerable groups, including women and young people, to enhance access to and participation in cultural life as well as enjoyment of cultural goods, and to strengthen the integration of cultural and creative industries and cultural tourism in local development plans.
UNESCO Creative Cities Network
UK National Commission for UNESCO
About Creative Scotland
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports culture and creativity across all parts of Scotland, distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery. Further information at creativescotland.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Learn more about the value of art and creativity in Scotland and join in at www.ourcreativevoice.scot
About Event Scotland
EventScotland is working to make Scotland the perfect stage for events by securing and supporting an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events. It provides funding opportunities and access to resources and information to develop the industry.EventScotland is a team within VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, the national tourism organisation, alongside Business Events and Development teams. For further information about EventScotland, its funding programmes and latest event news, we got the following resources.
Media contacts
For further information, interview and image requests please contact Owen O’Leary, on 07815992658 or email [email protected]