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2019 Winnipeg Design Festival will be curated and directed by Jae-Sung Chon and his design team STUFF (Studio for Transformative Urban Forms and Fields), under the theme PROTO.
The curator believes that Winnipeg should be a city for prototyping new ideas! “Let’s rebrand Winnipeg as a proto-city: a city where new ideas are accepted as its core urbanism.” As an educator teaching at the Faculty of Architecture University of Manitoba, Jae-Sung emphasizes a culture that embraces ‘young-emerging-(proto) ideas’. “Winnipeg can become a city of perpetual festivity, a living laboratory, a campus full of young/fresh ideas, where one learns and grows through living the proto-urban conditions.”
Winnipeg Design Festival is the largest annual event of StorefrontMB, a not-for-profit initiative focused on exposing the strengths within the local design culture. Since its inception in 2011, the festival has fuelled a growth of public awareness and appreciation towards the rich community of talented individuals and groups. Past participants and speakers include 5468796 Architecture, 1×1 Architecture, Public City Architecture, Thom Fougere, Lennard Taylor, Freya Bjorg Olafson, and John Patkau.
Following the theme, 2019 WDF will focus on encouraging, embracing, celebrating, and respecting the idea of the ‘first-in-time’ or ‘first-of’ within Winnipeg’s dynamic design culture. Several new programs are being planned this year, including the inaugural WINNIPEG DESIGN FESTIVAL AWARDS. The curatorial team will work with an Inuit Artist to design the trophies that will be awarded to contemporary designers, including young/emerging, experimental/proto- and an ex-Winnipeger of excellence.