This year’s festival is special not only for its tenth anniversary but also for its new theme, which will bring a lot of new impulses and inspiration. Nearly 63 enthusiasts are involved in the festival itself, but we will take a look at how the leading duo, project manager Klára Pelcová, and program director Ondřej Staněk, see the future of the festival.
If you had to describe Zlin Design Week (ZDW) in 3 words, what would pop into your head?
K: For me, it evokes connection, support, and omnipresent inspiration.
O: I’ll fill in Klara. I see the youth, the overlap, and the joy that underpins it all.
As mentioned in the introduction, Zlin Design Week celebrates its 10th birthday this year, what does this mean for the project?
K: The project has a significant history behind it, which needs to be paid tribute to, but it is also important not to rest on our laurels, not to get stuck in a nostalgic haze, and to look forward. I feel that the first decade proved to us that it was a great idea to put a festival of this nature in the hands of students. It has brought extraordinary creativity to the project, which has already transformed itself ten times both visually and conceptually while keeping the original idea of the festival intact.
O: I have to agree with Klárka on this I see that even student projects can be of high quality and sustainable in the long term. From my point of view, the anniversary could bring us to realize what the project brings us, whether everything is set up correctly, and whether we are heading in the right direction, in other words, where we would like to see the project in another 10 years.
Before we peek into the future, let’s go back to the past. Which festival moment is ingrained in your mind?
K: I like to remember the moments after the Best in Design awards were announced last year. Many of the finalists thanked me at the end for the way we do the competition and that ZDW deserves a lot of thanks for the opportunities the competition brings to the participants. They also praised the fact that at Zlin Design Week, their projects receive not only awards but more importantly, a deep understanding. At such a moment, you know that your year-long work is meaningful because it really helps someone in their work and career.
O: There were several key moments, but the common factor in all of them is the team itself, which works dynamically and with humility. The process of creating the whole festival inspires me a lot because it is a constant evaluation and balancing between what the expectations of the visitors and the team are and what unconventional and new things we can realize.
You’ve raised the issue of team structure. This year we see a slight change in the festival management, what is the change about?
K: The change is in the position of “project manager” which I took over from Jitka Smolíková after four years. However, Jitka is still with us and is creating the festival from the dramaturg’s chair. Together with the permanent program director, Ondra Staňek, we are shaping the thematic and programmatic design of the project.
O: This change was natural it follows the fact that Zlin Design Week is still 95% a student project. Every year, up to half of the team changes (both in the head positions and the individual program teams), as some have already graduated and others have started studying again.
They say new blood, new future. This year’s festival reveals the future, what does it mean for visitors?
K: FUTURE IS, that’s the theme that covers the whole idea of the festival. It follows my answer in the introduction when I mentioned the need to look forward. The subject of future can seem abstract and mysterious at first glance, and that’s what I like about it. None of us can see into the future, and yet we are actively participating in it every day. For everyone, this connection has a different meaning; it awakens something different in us, and that’s what’s inspiring about it. Both in new beginnings, new challenges, and in the opportunities to express creativity.
O: Again I will follow Klárka the theme allows us to open up questions that are part of the coming times. Be it building a resilient relationship between us and our country, the use of new technologies in design, or the continuing concerns around accessibility. This is a bit of a paradox for us celebrating the 10th edition of the festival while speculating about the future. Linking the past and present with the future is, however, an ideally suited means for comprehensive evaluation and reflection on a variety of topics, not only in the field of design. We can predict and constructively shape the future, yet we must be aware that it is a shared future for all of us. That is why we open the future with a concern for shared space, both physical and digital.
Can you tell us how this will be reflected in the festival’s program? Are you planning any new things?
K: There will be news. We still want to give visitors a little more anticipation, but under the covers we are hiding, for example, two fashion events that will uniquely and distinctively respond to the theme of the future in a diverse and even spectral presentation of Czech and foreign designers. There will also be exhibitions and thematic discussions.
O: Perhaps surprisingly, we will not be continuing the Conference format in this year’s program, which we have judged to be both unsustainable and not very attractive to festival visitors. However, there will be no shortage of engaging speakers, and throughout the year and during the festival days, you will be served with inspiring content by the pampered Design CANTEEN. However, I would like to wait a bit longer before publishing more details of the program. Those who follow us on social media will not miss anything.
With these words, we bid you farewell, and you may look forward to what the future will bring not only to Zlin Design Week but mainly to the design community and the public.
Klárka and Ondra, thank you for your time and introducing the concept.
We will look forward to seeing you, our fans, in Zlín on 8-14 May 2024.
Klára Pelcová
Klára Pelcová is a student of marketing communications at the Faculty of Multimedia Communications at Tomas Bata University in Zlín. During her early years of studies, she started her work in non-profit projects and campaigns. Later on, she began to focus on creative concepts and production coverage of projects. She is in her third year at Zlin Design Week, fresh in the role of project manager. In her work, she tries to pay attention to innovative and diverse aspects of marketing communication, which are meant to break down “old ruts”.
Mgr. et. Mgr. Ondřej Staněk
He works on university grounds and in the cultural and creative project system with an emphasis on the creative and programmatic strategic and dramaturgical design of projects, team and production sustainability, and programmatic event coordination. His professional background is in cultural management, interactive media theory, art studies, aesthetics and philosophy of art, architecture, and design. His theoretical interests include design and architecture, careful planning, visual coherence, and interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of CCI.
