Kyiv Design Week 2024 invites Kyiv residents and visitors to spend the last days of August together and welcome the fall. This year’s event, which marks the festival's second edition, aims to build a design ecosystem in Ukraine. The festival will cover major city locations, showcase the work of over 50 participants, and provide designers with the opportunity to freely present their work, engage with the urban environment and its residents, and interact with each other. Kyiv will experience concentrated co-creation, exchange of experiences, deep discussions, and inspiration for moving forward.
"Every day, even amidst a brutal war, we are constructing the future, and design is a powerful tool in this creation. A mix of aesthetics, functionality, and rationality is no longer enough. Design is an action, a response to the external, to collective processes, to the war and our attitude towards it. The constant balancing between life and death, between aesthetic ecstasy and unbearable pain gives the phenomenon new approaches and new depth, which we immerse ourselves in daily and together. Design at this year's Kyiv Design Week is unity," the project team comments.
The event will kick off with an introductory conference at MacPaw Space, followed by days filled with discussions, educational activities, exhibitions, and presentations of art objects. For example, the Kooperative space will host the art project "Healing" by artist and curator Olesia Drashkaba, and a panel discussion "Touchpoints" about Ukraine's global communication through cultural tools curated by Eter Agency. This year, Kyiv Design Week collaborates with educational institutions such as the Kyiv Academy of Arts and Design named after M. Boychuk, KNUTD, KNUKIM, Ukrainian Fashion Education Group (UFEG), the Scientific and Artistic Platform "Ostriv", RISODENTSIA, School of Art x Craft, Art and Me Calligraphy School, School of Visual Communication.
For fans of Ukrainian crafts and books, the festival has prepared presentations and the installation "This Day Has Come" at the SENS bookstore on Khreshchatyk. Additionally, in collaboration with the Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life in Pirogovo, the design week will feature CozyWeek – a space for interaction with the past and present, allowing a touch with our identity roots through engagement with the Kozijar community's everyday life. The restaurant Très FRANÇAIS on Kostyolna will offer a unique menu created with the Kyiv Design Week curators.
The main trend zone, a result of the collaboration between Kyiv Design Week and Ukrainian Fashion Week, will be located at the main show location. Within this collaboration, KDW and the architectural bureau IK-architects have created the "Design of Freedom" space at the Main Location of UFW SS25. This is another dimension of design in the event’s program, a location-manifest of strength, professionalism, thirst for knowledge, and unity. The two weeks of collaboration will provide city residents with events featuring Ukrainian brands, showrooms, and workshops – ZAVOD, VOZIANOV, DAVIS CASA, Kachorovska, GAEVA Showroom, and SHABALTAS Workshop.
Curators of this year’s event include architect Sasha Stolovyi (CozyWeek), communication agency Eter Agency (discussion "Touchpoints" at Kooperative), illustrator and community enthusiast Olga Protasova (educational projects), decorator Irina Boychenko (installation "This Day Has Come" at SENS Bookstore), Yaroslav Belinsky (curator of the conference at MacPaw Space), and Anastasia Biletska (capsule VCHASNO KDW x ZAVOD and "Design of Freedom" space at the Main Location of UFW SS25).
Join us for Kyiv Design Week 2024 from August 28 to September 4. The detailed program will soon be available on the official project page.
