The International Design Forum “Found in Kuchuk Paris” is an event that is part of the two-year Know-How Show-How Summer program held in Plovdiv between 2018-19 and realised in partnership with European Capital of Culture Plovdiv2019.
The forum will bring together renowned practitioners in the world of design, art, anthropology and architecture will address matters connected to social innovation and how mapping and engaging resources such as local experiences, skills, materials, residues from production and knowledge, play a valuable role in building more social and greener living environment.
The speakers that will take part are initiators of innovative practices from the Netherlands, France, Italy, Switzerland and Bulgaria, they will present projects like Open Design School (Matera 2019), Atelier-Luma, Sitterwerk / Art library and Material archive in the face of Sophie Krier (NL), Henriette Waal(NL), Rita Orlando (IT), Julia Lütolf(CH), Elmo Vermijs(NL), Mediator Association for Culture, Ethnology and Anthropology and more. Moderator of the forum will be Raya Stefanova
Henriette Waal/NL
Henriette Waal is artist and designer and presently artistic research director of atelier LUMA/France. She has been awarded by the International Award for Public Art for her placemaking approach. As curator for Mediamatic’s Bio-me program, Waal has developed a cross-disciplinary platform for knowledge exchange about brewing practices and design with micro-organisms. Waal’s projects have been exhibited worldwide in institutions such as Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Venice Biennial, Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai. In addition to founding a number of socially engaged art and design projects, Waal has taught since 2013 in the Social Design Master Program at Design Academy Eindhoven. www.henriettewaal.com
Julia Lütolf/CH
Julia Lütolf supervises the material archive at the Stiftung Sitterwerk a centre for art, research and production in St. Gallen, Switzerland. She is originally trained as a carpenter and later specialised conservation in the field of architecture and furnishings. At the Sitterwerk she is responsible for the expansion of the material collection and for providing background information on the web-catalogues of Sitterwerk and its network at the Material archive. The material archive holds a broad spectrum of material samples documenting historical and recent material developments in art, architecture and design. She also organises workshops and exhibitions regularly to deepen the knowledge about the main themes of the collection and make them accessible. Julia Lütolf also teaches art history to students learning the crafts of making musical instruments.
Elmo Vermijs/NL
Elmo Vermijs is interested in the relation between human beings and their environments. He sees the importance of engaging with complex realities such as environmental change, social fragmentation, inequality and what our personal role is in influencing these processes. Vermijs approaches design as a vehicle to uncover and re-visit existing condition, connections and to propose alternatives from here. These integral alternatives can find shape in the spatial domains of (landscape) architecture, sculpture and/or design. The projects ask the public to take an active role in the work and challenge them to rethink their own physical environment. No matter their shape, the projects always come about through intensive dialogue with all elements involved: people, place, materials, and are always inspiring. www.elmovermijs.com
Mediator/BG
The Association for Culture, Ethnology and Anthropology “Mediator” is founded in Plovdiv by ethnologists and social anthropologists associated with the Department of Ethnology at the University of Plovdiv “Paissiy Hilendarski”. Many of their researches and projects are focused on developing new approaches for exploring and presenting the cultural heritage of the city trough sensory ethnography. By Inviting the public to actively participate in their sensorial approach they reveal knowledge, create new connections and space for new stories telling and understanding. Currently “Mediator” is partner in the project “Plovdiv neighbourhoods TOGETHER – virtual portfolio” initiated by the Department of Ethnology at the University of Plovdiv “Paissiy Hilendarski”, and it is also part of the program of Plovdiv ECoC 2019. Through a ethnographic and visual mapping of Plovdiv, the projects aims to present the neighborhood heritage and at the same time to trace the life of the Chitalishte ( cultural community centers) and the participation of the citizens in the cultural life of the city.www.aceamediator.com
Sophie Krier/NL
Sophie Krier is a relational artist, researcher, educator and editor. Through her work she interweaves biographies of beings and places, and conceives tools and situations for collective narration and reflection. Her practice moves between intense periods of fieldwork and editorial/publishing activities (book- and filmmaking, exhibition design and moderation). Between 2004 and 2009 Krier led the undergraduate programme designLAB (Rietveld Academie, NL). On invitation of University College Roosevelt (NL), Krier developed Art & Design Practice, an undergraduate programme on visualising ideas in the spirit of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She is fellow researcher at EnsadLab PSL-Research University Paris, Reflective Interaction since 2017. Since 2008, Krier leads Field Essays, a series of hybrid publications, which enables listening pauses between practitioners and thinkers across disciplines. Field Essays is channelled by Onomatopee. In 2018-19 Krier founded School of Verticality in the context of an in situ research residency hosted by Lungomare (Bolzano, Italy) www.sophiekrier.com
Rita Orlando/IT
Rita Orlando is an architect, always on the search for something new, as a manifestation of her happy restlessness.Since July 2015, she has been part of the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation team, focusing on networking, management and follow-up of projects like “Living on the Edge”, “unMonastery”, “Innovation Lab” and Materadio festival. She strongly believes in the values of teamwork and the sharing of knowledge and experiences. Rita is the project manager of the Open Design School Matera, one of the pillar project of Matera 2019, an innovative, multidisciplinary platform focused on design as a capacity building tool.
She likes to think that: “The future is an open book”.
11:00 – 11:30
Welcoming program at Chitalishe Trakia with performance by ensemble Sedenchitza and a presentation of the results from the workshops conducted by KNOW-HOW SHOW-HOW in Kutchik Paris, ul Kukush 1.
11:30 — 12:00
Registration and small walk to the conference hall of the National Railway Company, ul. Makedonia 2;
12:00 — 12:15
Introduction by the moderator – Raya Stefanova;
12:15 — 12:45
Radical steps – New perspectives – Elmo Vermijs
12:45 — 13:30
Multiple beginnings: crafting possible futures – Henriette Waal;
13:30 — 14:15
Art and production/ the Material Archive of the Sitterwerk Foundation
– Julia Lütolf;
14:15 — 14:45
Break
14:45 — 15:30
Plovdiv neighbourhoods and chitalishta TOGETHER – Aneliya Avdzhieva and Mariya Slavcheva from the Association for Culture, Ethnology and Anthropology Mediator;
15:30 — 16:15
Open Design School Matera- a software for community empowerment
– Rita Orlando;
16:15 — 17:00
ICI/HIER/QUI/TYK: Field learnings – Sophie Krier;
17:00 — 17:30
Open discussion with all the presenters and attendees
ABOUT THE PLATFORM
Know-How Show-How is an independent learning platform that explores design and art practice as a means of cultural and social transformation. The mission of KHSH is to promote and enable the transfer of “know-how”: tangible and intangible instances embedded in our cultural heritage that inform who we are as communities and as a culture, where we have been and where we place our values for the future.
KHSH’s programs are live encounters that center around “learning by doing”, one of the most powerful tools to support personal development of skills and life experience. Central to our program is the way we look into the many layers that constitute the identity of a place, by probing its social relationships, visual language and historical traces with a specific design frame. Through this practice, we reveal local expertise and existing resources, and bring them forward in a new light.
In 2015 the platform initiated a summer cultural program in Bulgaria to address issues of the urban environment, using design processes to explore the potentiality of the place. The program consists of workshops guided by international designers and artists and a public program with lectures, presentations and discussions.
* The tutoring and lecturing team of the program has attracted professionals from both international and local creative communities with proven excellence. So far our tutors have been: Frans Oosterhof, Our Polite Society, Lotte van Gelder and Elisa van Joolen, the fashion collective Painted, Uta Eisenreich, PutGootink studio, Vesselina Nikolaeva, Maria Blaisse, Odd Matters, Elmo Vermijs and studio Tuhlla. As guest lecturers during our public program we were joined by Linda van Deursen, Dr. Clementine Deliss, Jurgen Bey, Carolyn Strauss, Varvara Valtchanova and many others. Our student-participants ranged from Bulgaria, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Croatia, the Netherlands, South Korea, Singapore, Russia, Lithuania, Turkey and the United States.
** We have collaborated with top-notch Bulgarian partners like Culture Desk foundation, Poststudio, Studio Komplekt, Transformatori, Projectirane, University of Architecture-Sofia, The National Academy of Art, Sofia Museum of History, the National Ethnographic Museum in Sofia, the Cultural Center of Sofia University, Goethe Institute Sofia, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Swimming pool projects(art platform), Creative Shower and Generator.
*** KHSH has been generously supported by several funds and organizations from Bulgaria and the Netherlands, among which: European Capital of Culture Plovdiv2019, National Fund “Culture”/Mobility program–Bulgaria, Sofia Municipality’s Program Europe and Program Culture, as well as Stimuleringsfunds Creatieve Industries–the Netherlands.
e-mail: contact@knowhowshowhow.org
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PARTNERS
Plovdiv ECoC 2019, Chitalishte Trakia (Cultural Community Center), Studio Tuhlla, Supernovi, Academy of Arts Plovdiv, Faculty of Philosophy and History Plovdiv University ‘Paissii Hilendarski’;
* The project is part of the official program of Plovdiv European Capital of Culture 2019.
