The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Design – make of it what you will
Not many events offer you the chance to see a printed city or to sing the sounds of factories. However, Dundee Design Festival promises to do all that and more
Dundee’s illustrious industrial heritage will be the inspiration behind the second annual Design Festival,which opens in the city on Wednesday.
A series of dynamic exhibitions will feature across three enormous galleries at the former DC Thomson print factory West Ward Works.
The festival is bringing together international designers from Dundee to Detroit whose work combines traditional industrial processes with hand-made techniques.
This year’s theme is Factory Floor, acknowledging the artistry of designers and makers who are blending production in a mix of craftsmanship and industrial processes to create a hybrid of old and new.
Curator and producer of the festival, Sion Parkinson, says: “It’s hard not to notice that Dundee is whirring with creative energy right now.
“It’s an exciting place to be and it’s a privilege to be able to invite some of the world’s leading designers and thinkers to our city to share their amazing ideas for an extended five-day festival.”
Sion promises visitors to the free festival can expect an “assembly line of creative activity”.
Highlights will range from a “meandering, eye-bending plaster walkway” by Chalk, to innovations in 3D printing in jewellery and furniture design.
Visitors can also get up close to a miniature landscape of hand-built ceramics by James Rigley and Dawn Youll, which recall smoke stacks, girders and bits of broken-down machinery.
Then there are elegant designs by Studio Glithero who, in one project, has
managed to connect the processes of textile weaving with mechanical organ music.
“This year’s festival is all about making,” adds Sion, “so we’re inviting people to don a smock, roll up their sleeves and try out new techniques at one of our many drop-in workshops.
“These include plaster casting, model making and carving jewellery from jewellers’ wax to make your very own solid silver ring.”
Another highlight is likely to be Print City, which celebrates the art of screen printing on a giant scale.
Coordinated by printmaker Scott Hudson and Dundee artist Paul Harris, visitors will be able to see the city’s favourite buildings being printed and constructed in a series of giant cardboard shapes that will interlock together to form a dazzling spectacle filling a vast 2,000sq ft space. Beginning with a screen printing production line, the team – aided by volunteers – will print a series of 20 newly created monochrome designs and patterns on to thousands of pre-cut cardboard surfaces.
As the city – made of buildings, streets, boats and trees – begins to take shape, audiences will be able to interact and participate with the printmakers while walking through its streets, sitting in its park or watching boats in the harbour – and maybe even helping to print a building or two.
The festival will also host a live performance by musical artist Andrew Wasylyk, whose new album Themes for Buildings and Spaces features haunting music inspired by Dundee’s postindustrial landscapes.
And for one evening only, visitors will be invited to help form the Singer Machine Choir – a vast chorus of voices that together will conjure the sounds of factories past and present, led by Dundee singers Alice Marra and Sheena Wellington.
It’s hard not to notice that Dundee is whirring with creative energy right now
www.dundeedesignfestival.com The event takes place at West Ward Works, Guthrie Street, Dundee, from May 24-29.