IDW 2021

2 3 interactions between actors that have not been identified before, and inspire for solutions that have not yet been thought of. The IDW2020 edition looked upon the cap- ping of ring road as the creation of a new urban common. It focused on the Northern part of the ring road, more particularly the connection between Luchtbal and Lambrechtshoeken, and aimed at giving voice to those groups and com- munities that are not reached by regular partic- ipatory approaches and at revealing qualities of places that were overlooked. IDW2021 is a sequel, and will work on this subject as well. It continues building upon the richness and power of the existing, relying upon design as a process of bringing the existing into new powerful constellations. This edition focusses on culture - culture as an emanation of what was and what is, but also as a space where future is made. Culture is performative. Cultur- al “performance” gives exposure to both “what lives among people” and “how the world could become”. How then can the long term of the construction works become a period of mean- ingful transition and empowerment, rather than a temporary, but one decade long, nuisance and burden? IDW2021 will facilitate local groups and communities to design and organize a hybrid festival with online and offline performances. The festival is seen as an offer for local groups and communities to speak up and claim space. As the designer is not the owner of the artefact that is designed, so is IDW2021 not the owner of the festival. The actors are locals, the acts are performed by locals. The aim of IDW2021 is thus rather to design a set of acts, devices, services and places, that can seduce locals for participa- tion, performance and place making. The preparation of the festival is seen as a dynamic process of offer and demand between clients and designers. The client owns demands, desires, ideas, and talents and may point to resources. The designer has the empathy to understand these demands, desires and ideas, to see potentials in available resources, and has the knowledge about bringing these things into shape. IDW2021 focuses on the youth of Lucht- bal. A close cooperation is set up with the local division of the youth organization JES. JES is an urban laboratory developing innovative projects for children and youth in Belgium, located in three cities: Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The target group of young people are typically be- tween the age of 6 and 35. Many of these young people also have a migrant background and limited formal education. JES is used to work together with a diverse range of partners nation- ally and internationally. JES operates through a demand-oriented approach. It organizes events tailored to specific groups and ages. Activities include sports (e.g. street soccer), dancing, mu- sic, multimedia lab, etc. For more information about JES, see: https://www.jes.be/pagina.php?id=190. For IDW2021, JES will act as a mediator between the local actors and the workshop organizers and tutors. It will map demands, desires and ideas that need design work to be realised. This material is collected in a miro- board that will be accessible for the selected workshop tutors, and act as a source of inspi- ration for the workshop tutors to conceive the concrete workshop. We provide two moments in which the selected tutors can have a look at the collected material: a first moment consists of an online presentation of the miro board, a second moment consists of a physical “market” in which tutors and local actors can meet and speak (to the extent that corona measures allow this meeting. If not, also the second meeting will be online). Based upon the material and the insights that might emerge out of the two contact mo- ments, tutors will conceive a workshop (that may consist of conceptual designs, design-built projects, organisational design, service-design, participatory performances, etc.) that leads to the moment of exposure on the actual “festival” on the afternoon and evening of the last work- shop day (Friday 12 February). Festival of the Meantime A festive celebration of living together, at recurring periods. How can cultural performance become a strategy to give exposure and agency to hidden voices and unseen places? How can artistic interventions become a tool for reaching out to those who participatory methodologies can’t reach? How can a repetition of small moments “taking place” become a “taking the place” on the longer term? Capping of the ring road and fractures of society: designing the meantime The capping of the Antwerp ring road creates new opportunities. On the one hand it offers an answer to the supralocal problem of traffic flow around and through Antwerp, on the other hand, at local level it offers the adjacent neighbor- hoods a new place for urban life. For both levels, the supralocal and the local, conceptual design proposals have been made. What has not or insufficiently been done yet, is to develop ideas about the quality of urban life during the time of construction, which can be estimated at 10 to 15 years – the duration in which a child becomes a youngster and a youngster adult. How can this timespan become a meaningful given in the creation of a better future for this area and its inhabitants? IDW considers the timespan of the con- struction works as an opportunity for the city and the involved neighborhoods to gradually rearrange and transform this area into a fair and vibrant piece of Antwerp. The area of Luchtbal has a remarkable history and a diverse and complicated population today. Although it might be known as a “difficult urban area”, its material and immaterial heritage and its vast open space and young population provide rich grounds for getting such process of transition started. IDW aims at identifying and revealing “what lives among people” – particularly young people – and at providing help in giving it a proper “place”. In IDW, the International Design Workshop Week, ‘design’ is understood as a process of identifying available resources, actors and ide- as, and bringing them into a new constellation, in order to reveal something better than could be expected so far, and meant to be owned by someone else (a product developer conceives a new product but is not the user; an (interior) architect designs a house but is not the one who will inhabit it; the artist realizes a work of art in order to be experienced by others…). IDW believes that making design ideas more tangible during fun events, design sessions and building campaigns, not only involves/engages residents that usually don’t attend participation events but also increases the awareness of the resi- dents of the issues at stake and the chances for solutions for their community needs. We believe that design is able to trigger parties, to provoke