The Festival City

“The Festival City” is a curatorial research project by Rosa Rogina delivered as part of her research residency at VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2020. To explore ways in which festivals can act as agents for positive change in an ever-changing world, over 20 leading curators, designers, architects, writers, educators and spatial activists have been invited to contribute to the new glossary of terms showcasing a series of fresh visions for the role of festivals in the city with one concept or term. In a time of three unprecedented global emergencies, one of Covid-19, one of climate change and another one of protests against racial discrimination, the video series explores new relevant formats, alternative frameworks for collaboration and further engagement of festivals with the city and its residents.

Rosa is an architect, researcher and curator currently working as a Programme Director at London Festival of Architecture, leading on curation and delivery of the festival's annual programme.
Instagram: @rosarogina @londonfestivalofarchitecture

Michel Hueter has been Managing Director and Curator since 2011 and is, since 2018, co-owner of the Swiss Design Prize — Switzerland’s leading competitive design promotion platform.
Instagram: @design_preis_schweiz

Unscene Architecture was founded by Manijeh Verghese and Madeleine Kessler in 2019. Madeleine and Manijeh are co-curators of the British Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021. Together they have run several summer school units, workshops and Saturday Club masterclasses across the UK over the past seven years. Unscene engages with different forms of public space across live and curatorial projects.
Instagram: @unscenearchitecture

Sofia Podreka is a designer, co-founder of dottings Industrial Design and the social business GOODGOODs, based in Vienna. Besides runnig the studios Sofia Podreka lectures at the Industrial Design Departement 1 / Institute of Design at the University of Applied Arts. Her recent work has focused on urban design and social issues.
Instagram: @dottings.design, @goodgoods.socialdesign

Shwetal A Patel is a writer and researcher working at the intersection of contemporary art and its production, research practice, and development theory. He is a founding member of India’s first biennial, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and is currently completing his practice-based PhD at University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art.
Instagram: @shwetalashvinpatel

Martina Menegon, artist, head of extended reality and curator at the Area for Virtual Art, and Wilhelm Scherübl, artist and architect. Part of the team creating Virtual Festival Headquarters for Vienna Design Week 2020 (Virtual Headquarters)
Instagram: @areaforvirtual_art @mijnseoung @zwanzigacht @sound_frame

Multidisciplinary designer who aims to merge between industrial design and VR. She was a co-chair for Tasmeem Doha Biennial Art and Design Conference 2019
Instagram: @no.hahahaha @tasmeem_doha

Tero is a spatial and product designer from Helsinki, Curator of „Wild at Heart“ exhibition for Vienna Design Week 2019
Instagram: @tero_kuitunen_design

Chloe Spiby Loh is a Public Programmes Manager at RIBA responsible for developing and delivering a cultural programme of talks and events. Prior to starting at RIBA, Chloe worked at the Architecture Foundation in London, where she was chair of the 2019 Antepavilion competition and led on the Megacrits series with multiple schools of architecture.
Instagram: @chloespiblo
Twitter: @ChloeSpibyLoh

Harald Trapp is a sociologist and architect based in Vienna. Besides other projects, his work includes numerous exhibition designs for the MAK, the Albertina, Belvedere and Künstlerhaus Vienna. In 2014 he cocurated and designed the Austrian pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice. He is one of the founders of "AKT", a collective of architects.
Instagram: @akt_kollektiv

Rosan Meijer is a coordinator of the Festival of Architecture, Flanders Architecture Institute
Instagram: @vlaams_architectuurinstituut

Founded 2013 in Weimar, Kollektiv Raumstation has emerged as an interdisciplinary platform for motivated city makers also in Berlin and Vienna. Raumstation is a catalyst to rethink and revive the urban space, to play with it and finally make it a place for exchange and common experiences. The collective works with experimental explorations of space, artistic and activist interventions and activating processes. Within its work, the role of inhabitants is crucial: as daily life experts, as recipients and initiators of change, as makers - as those, who finally count.
Instagram: @raumstation

Eugene Kavuma is Founder of Kampala Design Week, Uganda's premier design festival, and current Community Lead at East Africas' largest MakerSpace, Motiv.
Instagram: @kavumae, @kampaladesignweek

Christine Schwaiger is an architect and professor for Interior Design, based in Vienna. She is head of the Master Interior Design & visual Communication at the New Design University Sankt Pölten. Since 2009 her practice specialises in Interior and Exhibition Design.
Instagram: @newdesignuniversity

Cecilia Santamarina de Orive is a Creative Producer and Ad Honorem Cultural Attaché at the Guatemalan Embassy in UK. She has curated a successful variety of projects ranging from art and design to music and live performance, including the Guatemala: Rebooting Dreams at Somerset House International Fashion Showcase in 2016 and Palopó, Public Medal Winner at London Design Biennale in 2018.
Instagram: @cecilia_santamarina, @palopo_london_design_biennale

Leonid Rath studied materials engineering and business administration in Vienna.Together with his cousins Andreas and Johannes Rath he is owning Lobmeyr and is managing the glass branch since 2002. Lobmeyr is a renowned manufacturer of crystal and lighting based in Vienna and family owned since its founding in 1823.
www.lobmeyr.at
Instagram: @lobmeyr

Ania Molenda is an independent Rotterdam-based researcher, curator and writer. She is a co-founder and director of research and publishing platform Amateur Cities. In her work Ania focuses on the socio-cultural dimension of spatial practices and creates new forms of debate that bring different disciplines together. Before starting an independent career, Ania worked as a researcher and design teacher at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture (The Why Factory) and as an architect at MVRDV, Powerhouse Company and SVESMI. She was a finalist of the Geert Bekaert Award 2019 for architecture criticism, and a co-recipient of the Dutch Design Award 2018.
www.amateurcities.com, www.aniamolenda.com.
Instagram: @molend

Marlies Wirth has been active at the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna since 2006. As the Curator for Digital Culture she has a key role in the programming of the VIENNA BIENNALE and heads the MAK Design Collection. She curates exhibitions in the fields of art, design, architecture, and technology, such as UNCANNY VALUES. Artificial Intelligence & You (Vienna Biennale 2019) and the new MAK DESIGN LAB. She was the curator of the Official Austrian Contribution to the XXII Triennale di Milano 2019 and was nominated curator of the Austrian contribution to the London Design Biennale 2021.
Instagram: @marlieswirth, @mak_vienna

Juste Kostikovaite is a curator and producer. During her recent tenure as a Lithuanian Cultural Attaché in the UK she has worked closely with the UK arts institutions, including the BALTIC Centre For Contemporary Art, Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, CCA Derry~Londonderry, Somerset House Artists Studios and other institutions. She is interested in the topic of practicing authenticity and the process of collecting contemporary art.

Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez is a Designer, Architect, and Inventor. He is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Notpla, a London based start-up with the goal of making packaging disappear. Their product Ooho is an edible package made of seaweed that can contain water or any other liquid. Nowadays it is used in several sports events like the London Marathon or Roland-Garros.
Instagram: @rodrigo_garcia_gonzalez, @notpla

Filipa Tomaz Lisbon, 1975. Architecture Licentiate (FAUL, 1999) and MPS (ITP, Tisch, NYU, 2012). Filipa has consolidated experience in professional practice and develops learning experiences in architecture literacy, currently at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale.
Instagram: @trienaldelisboa

Ingrid van der Wacht founded her own company Factor-I (2001), where she works as a connector, communicator and conceptor with a focus on co/design for people and the planet. Over the years, she has worked for a number of design organisations, most notably the Dutch Design Week, which is now a part of the Dutch Design Foundation, for whom she currently fulfils the role of freelance International and Public Affairs Manager. She also works as member of the Executive Board for World Design Weeks and the board of BEDA, the Bureau of European Design Associations.
Instagram: @dutchdesignweek, @worlddesignweeks

Gonzalo Herrero Delicado is a curator, architect and writer based in London. Since 2016, he has been curator of the Architecture Department at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He also works as Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins. Previously, he held different curatorial positions at The Architecture Foundation and the Design Museum, both in London. This year Gonzalo curated the 7th Arquia Festival ‘Punto de Inflexión’ (Turning Point), the first-ever design festival in VR.
Instagram: @gonzaloherrero @fundacion.arquia

Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör is the Director of Creativity & Business at the Vienna Business Agency. The Vienna Business Agency supports and promotes the creative industries in Vienna with a range of formats, initiatives and funding programs. It facilitates new projects, establishes innovative and unexpected focuses and pushes activities designed to network, strengthen and increase awareness of Vienna’s creative industries. Through intensive exchange, subjects that are central to the future of the creative scene in Vienna are developed and driven forward, gaps are closed and tried-and-tested solutions continued.
Instagram: @wirtschaftsagentur_wien
http://wirtschaftsagentur.at

Sumitra Upham is a Senior Curator of Public Programmes at the Design Museum and this year she is part of the curatorial team for the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial: Empathy Revisited: designs for more than one. Previously, she was Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and part of the exhibitions team at White Cube, London. Sumitra is a trustee for the artist-run cooperative, Cubitt.
Instagram: @sumitraup, @designmuseum, @tasarimbienali

Lilli Hollein is the former director and one of three co-founders of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, Austria's largest design festival.. In May 2021 Lilli has been named the head of the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. She completed her industrial design studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. As a design and architecture expert, she has published in major international specialist publications and, as a curator, she was responsible for a number of exhibitions, including annual contributions to the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, exhibitions on Memphis Design, young Austrian architects and Austria's contribution to the 7th International Architecture Biennale Sao Paulo 2007.
Instagram: @lillihollein