When & where: 7 and 8 November 2007, Ljubljana Castle

Month of Design was born from the desire to closely connect professional designers and industry. Time has shown, however, that without the collaboration of marketing experts the process of creating brands will yield neither well-designed products nor good services; while the absence of a constant dialogue with academia results in a lack of the know-how necessary for reconsidering contemporary phenomena.
Since creating brands and acquiring professional know-how are inextricably linked to the design process, they have become the cornerstones of the annual design conference, suitably entitled this year Brands and Brains.

This year’s topic of Month of Design and the Design Conference is Mediterranean identities. We explore the pluralism of identities, the edges and borders. We seek to know whether it is possible that, along the shorelines of the turbulent Mediterranean, creativity could become the strongest weapon, and the most precious energy. We seek to know more about know-how that has accumulated along the shores of the Mediterranean since Antiquity, and the brands which are able to transform it into market opportunities.

Designing is an activity hovering between culture and economy, ethics and profit, between an immediate answer and sustainable responsibility. A critical debate on design is a debate on a unique material culture, which should no longer be an exception, but our everyday reality. Great and ever more rapid economic changes in Europe demand that we reconsider our relationship towards the past and the present, and above all, that we engage in a multi-faceted debate about the principles of our future coexistence.

The countries included in the new map of Europe are not only facing fierce competition from the more developed, technologically advanced and richer countries with mature markets, but also the problem of their historical identity. Some have only started to discover it; some have redefined it, while others are rushing to explore its new manifestations. Having established new political, economic and social systems which aim to be competitive while striving for compatibility with senior democracies, they have found themselves in a great cross-fire of problems.
What is the role and responsibility of designers in this situation?
Is the (re)defining of the cultural identity of a nation possible through reflection on the contemporary tools of constructing cultural identities?
What if tradition is only really constructed through reconsidering the future?

The field of professional design, which is present in practically all spheres of material culture, and often constitutes the most potent medium for appealing to the whole society to change, is an ideal framework for discussing these issues. It is only through serious reflection on the various material dimensions of identity, such as the living environment, architecture, food, clothing, and interior design, that we will be able to draw a demarcation line between national identity and the petty provincialism of nationalism that all too often seeks its proponents within design circles.

The two-day conference will host 20 domestic and foreign speakers delivering 10 lectures on the theoretical, design, architectural, fashion, and market aspects of Mediterranean identities, and presenting 10 actual/concrete brands from the region.

Photo: Matevž Paternoster