GMAN: Design Festa

Design Festa

November 18th, 2000

Design Festa is kind of like a trade show in that it happens at a convention center and people or companies rent booth space but Design Festa is about, hmmm, I guess I would say "modern" design. Design of Art, Music, Fashion, Furniture, Photography, even Music and Performance art.

Going there was like going to Wacko in LA or Urban Outfitters in it's content except it was pretty huge. It took us about 5 hours to look at all of it. The flyer for the event says they've been putting it on since 1994 and this year they had 1500 exhibitors. Pretty much any person that wants to exhibit can for a relatively small fee. It's about $100 a day for a 6 by 3 feet spot or $180 for a 6 by 6 foot spot.

Most people were selling things. Art, postcards and calendars were very popular as was clothing and jewelry. In a way it's kind of like going to a crafts fair but the image of a crafts fair is the kind of stuff a "country house" is filled with or a Knott's Restaurant would be decorated with and that's not what this was about. This is more like the kind of things you find in an alternative record store.

There was one company that sold jewelry made from electronic parts. The simplest was a bracelet made out of a very short colorful RCA cable like you'd plug into the back of your VCR. One end was male and the other female so they were easy to connect and put on your wrist.

Another guy was selling glasses (cups) that looked like human mouths with teeth and lips. Really kind of scary looking to be drinking out of another mouth. (or is that kinky?)

One girl was dressed up like somebody that works in a bakery and she was selling little figures that looked like food creatures. It was really interesting because she acted just like it was actually food. They were on trays just like at a bakery. She picked them up in tongs and put them in a plastic pastry box and then put them in a bag with chopsticks. The wrapper on the chopsticks was her business card.

Not everybody was selling stuff. Some people just bought the space and then put up an exhibit. There was a fashion show area and a performance art stage. I think for both of those each 30 minute segment was done by a different group.

One girl had a CD player she had painted purple imbedded in a purple stand with two sets of purple headphones and purple CDs. One headphone was on her head. She didn't say anything and she didn't look at you. She just sat there looking back and forth and you could put in different CDs into her CD player. I didn't get a chance to listen to the CDs. Maybe it was her thoughts?

One interesting exhibit was a toilet on a stand. You creators asked you to climb up and look in. Inside was about a 3 foot deep twisting tube and at the bottom was a TV display with a video playing of people looking back at you. I thought it was much more interesting that lots of people were climbing up and basically sticking their head in a toilet (maybe that was the point)

There were two girls who had just made a bunch of balloon sculptures. They were just sitting there asking people to comment. They didn't seem like their were selling anything.

The performance art, the one show I saw, was very strange. There were two girls, one wrapped in white bandages and another wrapped in black trashbags. I couldn't tell what they were saying, or I should say screaming. The were pretty much screaming during their entire presentation and at some point they grabbed a bunch of people from the audience and tied them up and led them through some of the show.

One exhibit was some very strange looking latex dolls that were moving.

I was very amazed and impressed by the quality of work and the number of people that are trying to make cool stuff. It was very inspiring to me. I'd really like to try to do some of that kind of stuff.

Below are links to some of the various exhibitors homepages. They might have more pictures of their stuff.

This link is for the show itsself. The next show is in May.

Design Festa

Various stuff. Click on the "works/gallery"

I_K_M_O

Check out her gallery of cute characters

atsuto ono

This person is clearly busy making stuff. Check out her gallery

Cresent Moon

Cool Art

Yasuo Samurada

Click the second icon (the TV) then click any icon in the middle, then select from the list on the left