April showers bring May flowers. Since 2009, Designmai takes place within the DMY International Design Festival Berlin. The Designmai Congress takes place as a prelude to the DMY festival in May. 13 speakers from different fields like architecture, fashion, product and communication design talk about the question: ‘When does design start?’ Since today not just letters and interi0rs are designed but also lifes and forms of government have become a matter of design. The congress takes place in front of the installation ‘Shadowbox’ by the artist Katharina Grosse at Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin on May 28. The Designmai Exhibition ‘Einfach – 12 Umschreibungen’ shows twelve exhibits and within them twelve aspects of simplicity in the Schinkelsche Bauakademie from Mai 25 to June 7, 2009. It presents solved complications and successful solutions for reducing complexity while preserving the richness of the world in simple things. The exhibition underlines the beautiful paradox that it is not necessarily easy to make things easy. However, if it works, it is certainly worth the effort.
The Designmai Congress and the Designmai exhibition are supported by Ikea Stiftung and Dynamo Design e.V.
Hosted by: DMY Berlin
Initiator and curator (congress): Bernard Stein
Curators (exhibition): Hannes Böhringer, Axel Kufus, Hans Hansen
