Nina's explanation of the project:
First i want to say what design in Slovenia means at this time.
It's making objects, industrialy. What i want to do as a designer in Slovenia
is to create better systems, act as a director with the goal of
changing situations. Throwing stones in the sea and waiting for the circles to form.
To do as many things as possible i've put together a group called Grupa,
that is a collaboration between seven product and graphic designers, architects and makers.
I also want to reproduce in Slovenia good projects that i know from abroad.
The words social entrepreneurship is super young in Slovenia and
when i read about it i really wanted to get involved. I started
to connect social entrepreneurs and create events and workshops
where they could connect with the community where they are based.
The most real example we did is a restaurant, that was made to create jobs
for five young people without schools and without a clear future.
(jamie oliver's model of fifteen restaurants)
We worked in three lines. We started with the collaboration with the local community,
that became a pool of knowledge, money and objects that we
exchanged for food and talk. That brought to a lot of publicity
that brought us sponsors to make the restaurant happen.
The third thing was the collaboration with a big garbage centre,
that gave us the materials, the machines and the man power to make the interior.
In the intense open door process, which we needed to built up
the restaurant many people became our friends and collaborators.
There is a group of homeless that wears the restaurant shirts and act
as our walking billboards in exchange for clothes and food.
We also recently started a collaboration with the neighbor
retirement home, where the ladies make all our embroidery.
When you work with such a big group of people, many great things happens.
One of the homeless guys is now our steady screen printer, because
he does it better that we do it, because he has done it for all his past life.
Our neighbor shoemaker bacame our book binder,...
These situations are so great for the relationship that i have with objects.
If i just choose collaborators that can do certain things,
or that have specific machines and then the formal decisions are almost made for me.
My wish at this moment is to become the garbage centre art director.
As a start we are making a kind of fab lab, beta house space, where
people can use second hand materials to make
things that they need and exchange their knowledge and products.
The garbage team.
Nina is the "designer" I met in Ljubljana.
The first thing we did was to have lunch in a nice
restaurant that she just finished with her "Grupa".
Ljubljana.
Craft: wood
Item: wood bowl.
Welcome to Slovenia.
14:20
14:00
13:37
13:35
12:10
12:05
11:35
11:00
10:30
10:10
9:30
9:05
In between Vienna and Ljubljana.
I took a night train from Praha to Vienna.