The seventh edition of Beirut Design Week, staged in various buildings and locations across the region, identifies the importance of multidisciplinary creativity for the progression of diverse global societies. Entitled Design & The City, the event foregrounds how creative practice influences all aspects of daily life, highlighting how responsive approaches can enrich the urban experience. Pairing designers, writers, educators and students with an array of humanitarian workers, including activists, environmentalists and researchers, resulting presentations explore how good governance, social inclusion and environmental justice can be promoted by emerging and established design and objects.

Inspired by grass-roots movements, experimental models for the everyday urban experience are exhibited and discussed, featuring architectural plans and smart solutions. Taking examples from the past, the event shows how an awareness of visual culture can benefit the present and future of making.  For example, Shame on Us by 21db & Das Scharf explores the fragile relationship between humankind and nature. Noting how the current geological age is named Anthropocene, the project highlights the impact of man’s activities on the earth. By encouraging individuals to reconnect with the natural environment within the public realm, the event promotes a sense of community, unity and responsibility. To further emphasis these themes, visitors are asked to share their dialogues and stories.

The programme of events also includes the critically acclaimed showcase Design Does* Beirut, previously showing at The Design Museum, Barcelona. The exhibition is instantly contextualised, returning to the territory it represents and showing how analogue and digital experimentations have tackled social challenges specific to the country.

Beirut Design Week 2018, 22 June-29 June. Find out more here.

Saffron Ward

Credits:
1. Image courtesy Tanya Traboulsi