A busy time is in store with Dundee Design Month

Dundee is quickly becoming one of the most-watched cities in Scotland.

Ahead of the opening of the new V&A Museum later this year, the first Dundee Design Month has been announced today with a programme containing more than 50 brilliant design related activities, workshops, exhibitions, tours, talks, events and festivals all taking place over just four weeks in May.

An initiative of the team behind the delivery of Dundee’s UNESCO City of Design designation and the hugely successful Dundee Design Festival, this design month celebrates design in all its forms and brings together the huge range of design activity that happens across the city in the month of May in one handy brochure and website.

Anna Day, project manager UNESCO City of Design Dundee said: ‘It has always been an ambition of our team to deliver a festival programme like this.

‘Other global cities have long enjoyed the benefits that a Design Month brings to their cities and with events taking place in major venues, hidden corners, galleries, cafes, libraries and new spaces Dundee Design Month will introduce people in Dundee to the makers, thinkers and doers who build on our cities strong design foundations every day.’

Annie Marrs, project coordinator, Dundee Design Month agreed: ‘In 2018, the year that we open V&A Dundee, Scotland’s only museum dedicated to design, Dundee is making a bold statement about the type of city it is and the type of city it wants to be.

‘Events and festivals like the Dundee Design Month, contribute towards making the city a rich and vibrant place for the people who live here and those who visit our city.’

With over 50 events there’s a lot to choose from, here are a few highlights of events.

Dundee Design Festival Presents…, 17–28 May. For this, its third year, Dundee Design Festival takes an alternative approach and delivers a series of events as part of its Dundee Design Festival Presents… programme.

Dundee Design Festival Presents… Dundee Design Parade, 26 May, 3pm, Dundee City Centre. In celebration of the Year of Young People 2018, more than 500 young people from across Dundee will come together to organise and take part in the first ever design-focused street parade celebrating design in all its forms in the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design.

Dundee Design Festival Presents… Pecha Kucha Night, 23 May, 7-10pm, Whitehall Theatre. Enjoy the super speedy 20 sec x 20 slide format hosted by Creative Dundee. This May’s PKN is delivered and programmed by young people as part of the Year of Young People 2018. From across Dundee and beyond speakers will share their take on inspiring and entertaining topics.

The Discovery and new V&A Museum in Dundee

Dundee Design Festival Presents… Factory Shop, 18-28 May, 10am-6pm, Reform Street. Factory Shop is an exhibition of prototypes and products made in factories by designers from last year’s Factory Residency Programme. Taking over a vacant high street property, the venue will also play host to several design-related events and workshops throughout the week.

Other events include:

Generation ZX(X) – Friday, 4 May, 8pm. The event is a thank you, from our generation to the ladies of TIMEX, who through their labour, and often unaware of their contribution, gave Dundee a new future: the video game industry. The event brings together performance, historical accounts, video and arcade games, and live music at Camperdown Park.

V&A Dundee: Is it for me? Various dates. As part of Dundee Design Month, the V&A team will visit venues across the city to share more about this incredible building and what to expect when it opens later this year.

Make your own Man Pin Workshop, Sunday, 20 May. Turn an old piece of wood into a Man Pin. Use anything wooden – an old instrument, bit of furniture or even a piece sports equipment and turn it into a pin to wear on your lapel or kilt, or wherever you like!

Places of Potential: DUNDEE, 23 and 24 May. Dundee welcomes the Districts of Creativity Network for two days of exploration, conversation and reflection on what it means to create creative places. One day will focus on physical places and the second on the digital spaces while exploring what it means to create spaces for all, and how we effectively listen to seldom heard voices.