The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Making design work for us all
As the curtain falls on another design festival Anna Day, manager of UNESCO City of Design, Dundee, looks back – and forward
On Monday we shut the doors of West Ward Works once more, closing another hugely successful Dundee Design Festival.
Over the six days, we welcomed thousands of people to the building that was once the print works for DC Thomson, producing millions of copies of Bunty, Beano and Oor Wullie annuals.
The aim of the festival was to acknowledge the heritage of Dundee – the factories and places where people produced work.
At the same time, we wanted to look forward and examine the factory of the future. How will people work together, to create and produce? And what about the digital world? We wanted to show how objects are made and what happens when that process goes wrong.
We also wanted to prove that Dundee’s design story is authentic and rooted in its sense of place. We’re a festival that genuinely reflects Dundee’s design story and that of the team that runs UNESCO City of Design, Dundee,
Many design festivals across the world focus on products and being commercial. We decided we wanted to produce a festival that people would want to come to, in order to explore and to understand how design works.
Our 40 festival volunteers donned smocks and welcomed visitors from Glasgow, Aberdeen and of course from across the city of Dundee.
Guest designers travelled from Germany, Spain, France and America to be part of our story. One of our brilliant volunteers even took a week off his job to come and work at the festival every day, because he wanted to be part of the energy.
The crossover of the different representatives of the communities and countries taken part has given the festival an energy all its own.
We welcomed people who had worked on the original West Ward building back in 1959, alongside members of community choirs and young design talent from across Scotland.
The main exhibition – around which visitors were guided by a print-out from an old fashioned dot matrix printer – helped people get beyond what they see in the shops and to consider how objects are made and created.
The range and beauty of the exhibits gave me hope that the future is not all going to be about automation and there will be a place for beautifully crafted items.
There was also a look at how healthcare may develop in the future with a 3D printed mask for radiotherapy patients.
For me the best moments were seeing children from all over the city making and doing. Nearly all took away an item – a print, a vase, a pot – that they had stood and crafted during the festival. And the excitement of making something beautiful and useful was obvious in the hours that the youngsters had spent imagining and creating.
Everyone who created the festival will have their own unforgettable moments.
For some, it will be the Singer Machine Choir – the brainchild of festival producer Sion Parkinson and Andy Truscott. Singers from community choirs, members of the public and designers all came together to be a part of an event that included recreating the sounds of the factory. Led by Alice Marra and set alongside the songs of Sheena Wellington, the results were moving and fun.
The festival was supported by NCR, who brought in a cash machine which was taken apart and reassembled in front of a fascinated crowd – a real Dundee factory story brought to the masses.
Produced by UNESCO City of Design team, the festival included partners, such as DC Thomson, Creative Dundee, Dundee Rep and Dundee Contemporary Arts. We’re proud of the way the whole city has come together behind our City of Design designation and shown they want to use it to improve lives in Dundee.