Design Manchester Launches 2018 Festival Programme

Manchester’s city-wide festival of creativity and design, from not-for-profit organisation Design Manchester, is returning for its sixth annual series, with over 40 events city-wide from 10th-21st October. DM18 once again takes in talks, debate, films, workshops, exhibitions, fairs and parties.

By Manchester's Finest | Last updated 3 December 2018

Share this story


The theme for DM18 is DISRUPT. This year the festival celebrates the noisemakers, the pioneers and the inspiring creators. The unapologetically smart and funny, the humble and inspiring. The ones with the business up front and the party at the back.

A few programme highlights include:

D(isrupt): Transformation by Design
Friday 19th October

The festival’s flagship event is the DM18 Conference, taking over the entire venue at The Bridgewater Hall on 19th October, with five separate areas featuring talks, workshops, seminars, interactive installations, Q and A’s, craft and making.

The main room speakers have been announced as prolific curator and creator Morag Myerscough, graphic artist, print-maker and designer, Anthony Burrill, BAFTA-winning designer and director of content for live productions, Kate Dawkins, Ben Wright, co-founder of award-winning international branding agency DesignStudio, and Liza Enebeis, creative director of Studio Dumbar, Kaye Dunnings, creative director of Glastonbury’s Shangri-La and Michael Wolff, founder of Wolff Olins. Once again the conference will be hosted by Patrick Burgoyne (Creative Review).

Buy Tickets

 

The People are Revolting
Saturday 6th October

Building on the theme of disruption, DM18 has partnered with Berlin-based artist Patrick Thomas other friends to create iconic stencils/slogans for you to use, to create your own protest and find your voice whatever your cause. In the age of dis-information, fake-news and social media the medium the project, known as The People Are Revolting is inspired by Patrick Thomas’s book ‘The Protest Stencil Toolkit.’

A series of workshops will run throughout the festival, beginning with a pre-festival weekender, 6-7 October at Manchester Art Gallery, and work will be shared and exhibited throughout the festival, including the D(isrupt)M Conference.

 

The Great Debate
Thursday 11th October 

This year Design Manchester’s design and society debate – in partnership with the All-Party Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group – will question whether All Schools Should Be Art Schools? With participants including Ellie Runcie, Future Programme Director of the Design Council, Lou Cordwell OBE, CEO of magneticNorth and Jack Tindale, Manager of the All-Party Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group, discussing how we can improve our educational policies to meet the needs of tomorrow’s economy, and how can we create the pathways so that all young people of talent can succeed?

Buy Tickets

 


DM18 Film Season at HOME: Once Upon A Time…
Friday 19th October- Sunday 21st October

Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in The West’ opens this year’s sequence of films for the Design Manchester festival. Making two more with the same prefix, Leone set the trend for numerous others to follow. We’ll also be screening the second in his trilogy, ‘A Fistful of Dynamite (Once Upon a Time in The Revolution)’ and 2011’s sublime Turkish ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’. Curated by Christopher Frayling, working alongside Malcolm Garrett and Fiona McGarva, the season also runs in partnership with Bradford Science and Media Museum’s Wide Screen Weekend.

More Information

 

Exhibitions
10th-21st October

The extensive exhibition programme includes Life on the Outskirts: Helen Storey in The Vertical Gallery at Manchester School of Art, Drawing the Modern: the work of Gordon Hodkinson in the Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections Gallery and Breaking/Faking News: Patrick Thomas in the window of Fred Aldous.

Thread Bearing Witness: Alice Kettle will be at the Whitworth, Nordic Craft and Design at Manchester Art Gallery, I Shout For The Fall at Bury Art Museum, transient_space: Adam Griffiths at the Geoffrey Manton Building, the Bee in the City Farewell Weekend at the National Cycling Centre, and The Warehouse Project & Design Manchester present… End of Store Street, at PLY.

 

Fairs
10th-21st October

This year DM18 x The Manchester Print Fair can be found at the Whitworth on 20-21 October, with over 50 stalls and workshops from G . F Smith, the event offers visitors the chance to take home handcrafted printed gifts and homewares from local independent makers.

For 2018 DM18 once again partners with the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (11-14 October, Upper Campfield Market) which will host its annual showcase of cutting-edge craft and design from over 150 designer-makers.

Plus 2018 welcomes the Manchester Art Fair (12-14 October, Manchester Central) into the Design Manchester festival, where over 120 galleries and artists will be selling thousands of modern & contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography and editioned prints at a wide range of prices.

……………………………………………………………………………..

Design Manchester
10th-21st October 2018
@Various locations

Tickets & More Info