Planning to Stay Different:
A Design Week's Recipe for Innovation

It is often claimed that design festivals are hubs for innovation. Bringing something like this to life is, of course, much easier said than done. So, what do design events need to do to, in fact, become agents of socially as well as ecologically sustainable change? Gabriel Roland, director of Vienna Design Week, proposes in his talk the example of an ever-changing, nomadic festival as a basis for discussing the crucial balance between reliability and adaptability when attempting to raise awareness for the innovative potentials of design.

Speaker: Gabriel Roland is the newly appointed director of Vienna Design Week. Besides leading the team organising Austria’s largest curated design festival, Roland is directly responsible for many of its international relations, commissions and special projects. For example, he initiated the Virtual Festival Headquarters of 2020 and co-curates the festival’s renowned ‘Passionswege’ format, which brings together design and craft. Roland has a background in textile design as well as fashion and art writing. Apart from Vienna Design Week, he was involved in projects bridging topics as diverse as toys, digital media, pop culture, and the contemporary art market.