Design Week took place in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Alytus, Telšiai and Anykščiai. This year’s theme “Insights” was embodied in all six cities. It highlighted the importance of communion for Lithuania as a whole. The bright orange colour of the festival was a colour that evoked optimism. As every year, the programme took five forms: a designer showcase, an exhibition, an event and a guided tour. Over two hundred participants created a fabulous atmosphere of a cultural celebration and reminded society of the importance of innovation.
The capital and the very heart of Lithuania saw the largest variety of designer showcases. Fifteen showcases featured insightful creations: from the ‘Otherwise’ cabinet for the blind and various artworks promoting less consumerism, such as Bagic’s multifunctional pineapple fibre backpack, to the artworks of students from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, speaking through everyday objects. Architect Ieva Prunskaitė and sculptors Danas Aleksa and Jonas Aničas presented the fireplace “Horizontas”, a spatial sculptural piece in black metal that adds cosiness to the interior with a panoramic view of fire.
Thirteen exhibitions presented Lithuanian, Austrian, Belgian and Swedish products. Elric Petit, Grégoire Jeanmonod and Augustin Scott de Martinville, the creators of the latter, presented Big-Game armchairs and Bold chairs in the interior space “Knot”, convincing us of the meaning of the slogan “from confrontation comes progress”. One of the more interesting discoveries in this year’s exhibitions was the Pleiades chandeliers, which could be seen in Kaunas at Art Matter and in the manufacturers’ own workshops. “Pleiades produces scrubbing lamps – works of art for the home and for various business spaces, such as the Bardakas bar and the Neringa hotel in Vilnius.
Sixteen exhibitions helped Design Week ’22 to fully reveal this year’s theme – “Insights”. The exhibition of Ukrainian works “Soul of Home” at the Radvila Palace Art Museum spoke about life in objects. The idea for the exhibition was conceived during the war in Ukraine, when a bombed-out house collapsed with the exception of one shelf and the ceramic cockerel that stood on it – “Pivnik”. Another exhibition that has a strong touch on the theme of insight is Invisible. Historical furniture from a contemporary design perspective”. Invisible to the average museum visitor, and often only objects with no history, which are invisible to the archives visitor, were brought to life for the first time in the Museum of Applied Arts and Design alongside the design works of modern creators.
A total of 17 events throughout the week invited people to take part in film screenings, workshops, discussions and other gatherings. The new interior design house “Holas” opened in Kaunas, inviting every interior lover and passer-by looking for new ideas for their home to benefit from the advice and experience of professional consultants, as well as to visit the sophisticated, modern salons. The cooperating companies Akmenstata, Termopalas and Wilbergs offered a wonderful day out in Paupys, inviting visitors to a journey that awakens all the senses, enchanting them with a variety of scents, drinks, snacks and materials. The VDA hosted an intriguing public lecture with one of the most influential automotive designers, Frank Stephenson.
Five factory tours took place: two in Kaunas and three in Alytus. One of the tours in Kaunas was dedicated to interior designers. The aim was to bring the wider community together with the King of Sleep, “Lonas”. After a tour of the modern factory, participants could enjoy grilled dishes in the fresh air with Juzef, owner of Rejben. In Alytus, Alita, Astra and Glass LT invited visitors to get to know and evaluate the products in terms of design.
This year, Alytus surprised with the widest range of programmes. For the first time, Alytus hosted Design Week in its own city, demonstrating a high level of artistic and organisational excellence and outperforming the other Design Week cities in terms of vision. Alytus residents and Design Week visitors from all over Lithuania had the opportunity to attend a spiritual evening of sound design in the former Synagogue. The spectacular exposition of the evolution of industrial design in Alytus gave new meaning to the city’s community. The design of symbols on the pavement, created by the artists and the citizens themselves, spoke of signs that have taken on meaning together with nature. The Day of Style and Tolerance for Appearance, together with Nomeda Marčėnaitė, encouraged us to look at fashion in a different way through theatre, designer collections and, above all, the image of the human being.
It is difficult to describe all the impressions of the seventeenth Design Week, but we can rejoice together with all the participants, visitors and passers-by of the showcases. We hope that next year there will be even more sensations and that Lithuanians will take an active interest in the bright insights of designers!
See you in 2023.
