2017 Detroit Design Festival Preview @ CultureSource
It’s September and the streets are alive with arts-related action, including the return of the annual Detroit Design Festival, which is always made to delight. This year’s DDF runs from September 26th-30th at points all over the city, and the theme is Design Is Everywhere—a simple sentiment, but one that underscores the omnipresent role of design in our everyday lives. Human society operates around the built environment, and it can be an eye-opening revelation to realize that almost everything you see and interact with in your day-to-day life has been created for a purpose.
“Through a variety of different experiences, whether they are workshops, exhibitions, or other events and opportunities, we’re trying to show the way that design is really pervasive in our community, and our life, and our work,” said Olga Stella, Executive Director of Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3), which operates the design festival. “We’re trying to show all the different ways that it [design] manifests, and make it as accessible as possible to people.”
Programming includes a showcase of highlights from this year’s 10th International Design Biennale in Saint-Etienne, Detroit City of Design and the Future of Work, to which Detroit was invited as Guest City of Honor by fellow UNESCO City of Design Saint-Etienne, France. The Biennale took place in March of this year, and presented examples of Detroit’s most innovative design practices and applications to an international audience of more than 230,000 visitors. The work presented by Detroiters was unified under the theme, “Detroit Works”—a concept that Stella finds to be particularly relevant here at home, as Detroiters think about ways in which design impacts our lives. The exhibition seemingly kicked off the entire design month and is on view at the Valade Family Gallery at the College for Creative Studies through October 7th.
Images courtesy of Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3).