A Guide To San Diego's First Ever Design Week
Speaker 1: 00:00 The first ever San Diego design week kicks off tomorrow, a five day event to celebrate San Diego's diverse design community. The event is designed to generate a community conversation about how design affects our way of life with workshops and exhibitions, featuring architects, interior designers, landscape designers, fashion designers, and more it's presented by the Mingei international museum and a team of community partners from all kinds of design disciplines. Joining us to fill us in on the plan for design week is Stacy Kelly, who is special projects manager with Mingei international museum and design week program director, Stacy, thanks for being with us. Thank you for having us and also Felicia Smith, who is co-creator of an exhibit about social justice with self care. Felicia, welcome to the show. Speaker 2: 00:47 Yes. Thank you for having a Speaker 1: 00:49 Stacy. Let me just ask you first. Would you say that that one goal of this event is to make us rethink what design actually is? Speaker 2: 00:58 It is, this is a really interesting opportunity with design weeks. The idea is really to bring the public into the conversation and show how design is shaping our region in a lot of different ways. So this year's theme is design class, which talks about how design shapes all these various aspects of our community, whether it's sustainability, the built environment, how design really builds and serves our neighborhoods. And so I think, um, really in addition to talking about what design's role is in our everyday life, the other aspect is really looking at the situation that we're finding ourselves in and looking at designs potential to inspire change and innovation as we envision it a path forward. So Felicia you're an event designer and yes. Speaker 1: 01:48 Do you find that people sometimes don't really quite know what that is? Speaker 2: 01:52 They don't. And they always assume that I come in and I bring everyone together. I start from the beginning and I coordinate people, but I don't. I just come in from the perspective of you think, you know exactly what you want as the client and you have some ideas and I come in and pull it all together for you. And to give you exactly what you wanted. You thought you wanted a desire Speaker 1: 02:19 In some ways, that's a good example of how we need to stretch our minds to understand this word design and Stacy. I was wondering if in some ways you're looking to build out a sort of San Diego brand of design with this design, Speaker 2: 02:34 We're really looking to highlight San Diego as a unique design community design weeks happen in cities all over the world. So with Mingei international museum, bringing San Diego design week to San Diego, it was really an opportunity for us to look at what really defines San Diego. And obviously one large element of that is the cross border exchange and the opportunity that we have for that, we also have just so many unique aspects that are inherent to San Diego. So we really created this diverse group of designers. As we started design week to reach out to all of the various communities, we really wanted to include as many voices as possible to really create that very unique San Diego design representation. Speaker 1: 03:21 Felicia, I noticed that the website for the event is designed in both English and Spanish. Talk to me a little bit about how this event is, is helping people be more inclusive, make the design community more inclusive. Speaker 2: 03:33 Yeah. So for me, for what I did with my piece, I reached out to different areas, different cultures, just to bring us together, to get a voice, uh, that we're all our different voices in unity. So we all have struggles together. We all have creativities together. We all come from an art perspective. That's very together. It seems different at times, but it's not, we all want to say something. Art brings us all together in that way that we can have our voice in and we can paint and design and decorate it's similar. And so I think different cultures come together in that way because art is universal. It just speaks to whatever language we're trying to put out. Speaker 1: 04:19 Now, your, your events during design week is walking people through a virtual experience. That sounds interesting. Talk to me how you're going to do that Speaker 2: 04:27 At first. I didn't know how I was going to do that because it does sound a little difficult to do, but what I decided to do is to take my art piece and construct it and present it in a way that someone is firsthand experience. So I, I wanted to, and I'm walking someone through the exhibit itself versus just showing the exhibit exhibit. We walked through it literally. Speaker 1: 04:55 And your exhibit is of an event Speaker 2: 04:58 Is of what's happening in the world today. I decided to take what I normally do and use some pieces that I will use in an event space and take that and design it according to a social circumstances that have been going on for years, but that are speaking to us loudly today. Speaker 1: 05:21 You hope people take away from the experience, Speaker 2: 05:23 Some thought to some self reflection, some change, some inner reflection of who they are and what they stand for. Some things to remember what we're doing. Um, I'm hoping that people will walk away looking at our environment differently. Um, I'm hoping to invoke conversations. I'm hoping to remind people that we are part of that change and we can do this change. Interesting. So it's almost Speaker 1: 05:58 Like redesigning experience. Yeah. Speaker 2: 06:00 Yes. So I think the, the other piece that I want someone to take away is, and to know this, that I didn't think what perspective my designed would come from. How, how did designing play into an art world without just being the I'm a painter, I'm a, I'm a builder, et cetera. And so I thought, how, how can I use my voice? And so I hope that someone walks away and think, no matter how you design, no matter which way that you, you look at yourself as a creative, that you can create something that speaks to the world and that this speaks to social injustices, you can create in a way that evokes thought and that speaks for other people. So I hope people walk away with just a variety of, of conversations and thoughts on this. And I, and I hope that the next creative will see that they can create what they have and who they are in their unique way. Yes. Speaker 1: 07:04 Stacy, can you give us a sense, an overview of some of the programs they're not all virtual, are they, some of them are in person. Speaker 2: 07:11 We shifted to this online format and we did that in a few different ways. Um, like Felicia's event, there's a lot of different, um, features that can be visited on the website. There's online talks, there's online workshops, virtual studio tours, but then there's also self guided tours which designers have put together. And those are an opportunity for people to get out in the city and explore design in person on their own safely. So it is kind of a hybrid situation where we wanted to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to really get out in the region and explore design, but in a way that was safely and it avoided the large gatherings, Speaker 1: 07:55 So many events during this design week, how would you recommend someone who's interested, decides what to register for? Speaker 2: 08:01 There really are so many, there's, there's over a hundred events and features, and it's been so fascinating seeing how all of the various presenters have approached this new format that we're working in. And like Felicia have been so creative in the way that they've shared work and shared conversation. There is if you go to the programs page of SD design week.org, you can find a filter. And that filter allows you to search by design, discipline, searched by design category. And that can really help you design your own design week experience and really kind of create your own way of exploring the content. So that's, that's a really good start. You can also scroll down the page and you can see the events that are occurring every day, and then below that there's also, um, different categories such as if you're looking for podcasts or film screenings. Speaker 2: 08:54 So it's, it really is truly impressive. I know when Mingei international museum and the team really embarked on this, we never expected to have such an amazing representation this first year with all that's going on in the world. So it's really inspiring and SD designed week.org. That is the key website. And I'd like to thank you, Stacy Kelly for speaking with us. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Stacy is the program director of design week and Felicia Smith, who is co-creator of an exhibit about social justice with self care. Thank you so much, Felicia. Thank you. And thank you. It's my pleasure for being here.
