Field Report №1, Part 1: ReDo, Prishtina, Kosovo

Links and references for this report:

ReDo
https://redoprishtina.com/ (official site)
Go here for a full list of past presenters from 2011 onwards

Bardhi Haliti
https://bardhihaliti.com/ (foliosite)
Zuzana Kostelanska
https://www.instagram.com/zuzanakos/
De Appel
https://www.deappel.nl/

Samuel Nyholm aka Sany
http://www.sany.dk/

The venue—Kino Armata—has a really nice looking site with details of other creative outlets associated with the current management...
https://www.kinoarmata.org

Shirana Shahbazi has a wikipedia entry!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirana_Shahbazi
Manuel Krebs is a founding member of Norm...
https://norm.to/

See link below for Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) Graphic Design (GD) Master of Arts (MA) course details. It is a very young course but is already forging a interesting and unique path through this field.
https://www.eka-gd-ma.ee/

The 2022 EKA GD MA cohort included designers Shubham Aggarwal, Andrew John Beltran, Pierre Benoit, Anastasiia Grigoriadi, Urtina Hoxha, Oleksandra Hruzynska, Daria Luchinina, Helga Ólafsdóttir, Tex Teehan, Agnes Isabelle Veevo [1st year] and Carlo Canún, Rita Davis, Mark Foss, Michael Fowler, Oliver Long, Alexandra Margetic, Gréta Þorkelsdóttir, Patrick Zavadskis [2nd Year].

The Centre for Narrative Practice is an exciting initiative instigated by the Manifesta 14 committee. It's hoped he centre will have a long life that continues well beyond the events of Manifesta in 2022.
https://manifesta14.org/venue/centre-for-narrative-practice/

Jonathan Castro Alejos
https://www.jonathancastro.pe/
https://www.instagram.com/jonacthan/

The quote by Carolyn Strauss is featured in an essay in the publication "The Future of the New: Artistic Innovation in Times of Social Acceleration", published in 2018 by Valiz.
https://valiz.nl/en/publications/the-future-of-the-new

Read artist Mattin's Theses on Noise here...
http://mattin.org/essays/THESES_ON_NOISE.html

Laurenz Brunner
https://www.instagram.com/laurenzbrunner/
Source Type
https://www.sourcetype.com/
The Dinamo Name Crawler...
https://dinamo-namecrawler.com/

Elisa van Joolen
https://www.instagram.com/elisavanjoolen/
Elisabeth Klement
https://www.elisabethklement.com/
Our Rags magazine (that's the publication utilising custom made paper discussed in their presentation)...
https://www.thisiswarehouse.com/shop/2022-06-14-our-rags-magazine
The paper in question was produced at Middelste Molen in Loenen, Netherlands.

Atelier Brenda
https://atelierbrenda.com/
Beursschouwburg (be sure to check out their Instagram and social accounts to see how Brenda adapted the venue's identity to recent Covid restrictions)...
https://www.beursschouwburg.be/

Travel notes:
I stayed at the Garden Downtown Hotel which I wholeheartedly recommend. Not to be confused with the Garden Hotel across town. They don't have their own website but you can find them by searching most online booking sites.

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Script:

"Hi. I’m Michael Bojkowski. I currently edit and produce material as part of Res Cat. I was recently fortunate enough to be able to relocate from Melbourne, Australia over to the EU for a few months during what is generally one of the busiest periods for art and design events during the year. Welcome to this first report in series that documents where I went and what I experienced. If you have any comments or questions along the way don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know. Our first stop is Redo held in the Kosovo capital of Prishtina."

"ReDo is a graphic design (with a lowercase g) conference or… gathering… or whatever you want to call it… that held its 10th edition in 2022. ReDo has been held in Prishtina since it’s inception in 2011—but is attended by speakers and visitors from all over the globe (although predominately travelling from inside the EU and the Netherlands)."

"The conference has been organised by Kosovo-born, Netherlands-based designer Bardhi Haliti and a close knit team of collaborators since it began. The video here is of a book of poems I picked up on a visit to De Appel in Amsterdam which was designed by Bardhi (who has been doing a lot of design work recently for the arts org) along with Zuzana Kostelanska. BTW Links and references will be included in the description accompanying this presentation."

"For most of this time the ReDo identity has been lead by Danish illustrator, Samuel Nyholm aka Sany. Again check the description for links. (The pervy bearded gent is a cheeky nod to Will Holder apparently). Here are some illustrations from past editions of ReDo which you could find on Tote Bags, Tshirts, Stickers, Programmes, Social media posts and more."

"This year’s illustrations were puns about fruit… for some reason. Here’s the bag and poster I picked up. My bag is white reverse… other bags were four colour. I missed out somehow. [sad face]"

"Past presenters at ReDo have included… Jop van Bennekom (of Fantastic Man & Butt publications), Girls Like Us, Žiga Testen, Veronica Ditting, Jürg Lehni, Radim Peško, Åbäke, Experimental Jetset, Cornel Windlin, Linda van Deursen, Our Polite Society… amongst others… If you know contemporary graphic design hopefully these names will not be totally unfamiliar… If they are you might enjoy checking out some of their work to date."

"I’ve wanted to go for a long time, even though I knew nothing about Prishtina or Kosovo (or how much organisation would be involved in getting there). It’s just always sounded like a really compelling event to be part of.

"Oh yeah… this is a couple of dogs who joined the conference. One having a snooze in the foyer, the other joining us in the auditorium momentarily. There are a lot of very confident dogs in Prishtina."

"The 2022 edition of ReDo was the first after a three year break, thanks to Covid, and coincided with the Manifesta 14 city wide event (which you can hear about in the next video). For this reason the programme was a little slimmer than previous editions but no less compelling. This is the venue—Kino Armada—situated in the main pedestrian square in Prishtina, next door to the Grand Hotel. It was a lot more charming on approach than this Google image allows."

"On the first day we heard from partners in publishing and life Shirana Shahbazi & Manuel Krebs (the later also part of design studio Norm)… They discussed the tensions between art and design and photography and how they negotiated the many decisions that had to made along the way as a couple in life as creative collaborators. Both had definite perspectives and it was super nice to experience the creative tension that resulted not only in many print publications but also bled into the exhibiting of photographic artworks within physical spaces."

"And students from the Estonian Academy of Arts Graphic Design MA department who, impressively enough, had spent several days travelling from Estonia by Bus (the places they visited are on screen), visiting designers, schools and suppliers along the way in order to present the work they produced ‘on the road’ exclusively at the conference."

"They were understandably unprepared to be thrust into the conference spotlight having arrived in Prishtina the day before (and after hosting a Risograph workshop the same morning they arrived, here are some pics from the workshop held at the Centre for Narrative Practice) so they regaled us with the story of their travels before pledging to come back and present the resulting publication, the day after."

"On Day two we heard from Jonathan Castro Alejos. Who introduced us to this quote by Carolyn Strauss… “The ‘new’ should not be thought as the next step in line of progress but rather as something emerging from a thick web of complex relations. Like a flower in a swamp.”"

"Castro’s work was super interesting in the melding of recognisable graphic design approaches with super vibrant organic motifs and forms. This work was richly textural, sometimes tactile and frequently delirious. It also bucked the deeply embedded Eurocentric modernist approach that has dominated the industry for decades."

"It was particularly interesting to hear Jonathan discussing noise as a type of conceptual framing (reminding me of artist Mattin and his Theses on Noise—again I’ll include a reference in the description) as well as showing us some of the chaotic typography from his hometown."

"We were then entertained by type designer (amongst many other talents) Laurenz Brunner who shared a personal research pool on the topic of names and naming conventions. Something close to a type designers heart but rarely discussed or analysed in great detail (see also Dinamo’s battles with algorithmic type naming). BTW The typography of the right is apparently super offensive if you can decipher it’s meaning. I couldn’t so apologies in advance."

"Laurenz’s presentation was super well considered and imbued with both humour and pionency. Would love to able to share the whole thing with you but I think it will remain exclusive to ReDo attendees. Maybe keep an eye on the foundry he recently helped initiate called Source Type which is making a concerted effort to publish articles on typography from a wide range of writers and perspectives."

"Day Two also saw the return of EKA GD MA students with a lavish(ish) performance that introduced a completed publication produced by a variety of means whilst on the road from Estonia to Kosovo. Their ‘performance’ even involved a human pyramid!"

"This pool of graphic design students—who arrived to study at EKA from all over the world—should be commended for embracing a course of study that put taking risks at it’s core but I personally began to question the need—particular to educational institutions—to provoke students to ‘perform’ design, often via physical means. From the look of exhaustion on the faces of some of the participants I wondered if they might be asking themselves the same thing."

"BTW The pricing structure for their publication they announced on stage made it prohibitively expensive for a working designer to purchase a copy so I left empty handed (even though the previous days Riso workshop meant I had contributed somehow)—still I was saving space in my luggage for book purchases to come so…"

"On the third and final Day we heard from Elisa van Joolen and Atelier Brenda."

"Elisa van Joolen has the type of practice that maybe few places—such as the Netherlands—make space for that falls between established disciplines in and outside of art and design. She is interested in garments as singular aesthetic objects—and less so in the labour and production of said garments—working independently but also with name brands. Her work is often startlingly easy to define—although the relationship between the objects she references and their origins are more murky."

"Elisa crescended her presentation by introducing a project completed with graphic designer and collaborator Elisabeth Klement (as spotted at the bottom left of the previous slide) which involved producing a publication using their own paper made from collected garments. They went into great detail around the production of said paper which involved working with a specialist legacy paper mill in the Netherlands staffed and maintained by volunteer retirees."

"Most presenters seemed to want to avoid your typical design conference presentation where a portfolio is wheeled out and projects pointed at. Nana Esi and Sophie Keij from Atelier Brenda started out a little self conscious about this but once they got into the story of the evolution of their studio and how each commission has helped mould their practice—a compelling overview was quickly formed."

"Most exciting was their continuing work with Beursschouwburg—a cultural venue in Brussels—for which they were handed the mantle of looking after and expanding the identity of the venue as well as producing numerous campaigns in support of their seasonal programming."

"They openly discussed the influence Covid restrictions had on how they worked with the cultural institution as well, recognising the importance of the 1080 by 1080 pixels square image deployed on social media outlets such as Instagram as a designed object in it’s own realm. I’m a fan of Brenda now. Long may their unique relationship design and prosper."

"Overall, I was super happy to have had the opportunity to attend this event, albeit in it’s slimmed down format. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised that there was a lot of input from cultural centres outside of Kosovo including representatives from cultural funding bodies elsewhere in the EU (particularly the Netherlands). ReDo had an air of informality that seemed to open up space for fresh thoughts and perspectives that other, more formulaic design events could definitely learn from."

"That was the first stop on my EU visit in late 2022. In the next video I’ll be sharing experiences from the Manifesta 14 event also in Prishtina. Don’t forget to check the accompanying description for references and links to items mentioned in this video. Thanks for stopping by."

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