Biennial of Design kicks off in Ljubljana

Curator Alexandra Midal and her assistant Emma Pflieger have developed a curator concept dubbed BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? for the biennial, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

Political, bold, vibrant, and provocative, BIO28 will examine the figure of floriography, a code hidden within flowers to transmit secret information, the MOA says on its website. The core of this transdisciplinary and multifaceted exhibition scrutinizes the pivotal role of floriography used by women to portray their identities. In that sense, flowers pave the way for antagonistic and alternative interpretations of both the meanings and the context in which they are decrypted, wrote the museum.

Midal, professor at the Geneva University of Art and Design and head of the Critical Thinking Department at Ensci-Les Ateliers in Paris, told the STA ahead of the biennial that "the exhibition will tell the story of the clichés associated with flowers, which represent the commodification of women into an idealised model of beauty.

"It will be conceived in a way that encourages the visitor to explore. Like a private detective, he or she will go on a hunt for answers, which will only be found at the very end. While exhibitions are meant to educate the audience, they can also entertain visitors. And I believe that visitors will be intelligent and that they will have fun," she said in an interview ahead of the show.

The MAO and the ISIS Gallery will host two complementary exhibitions and, according to MAO head Maja Vardjan, it is necessary to see both in order to understand this year's theme. The Small Gallery of the Bank of Slovenia presents the Denton Project, a joint project of students from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and students from the Geneva University of Art and Design, and the urban poster project will be presented at Ajdovščina.

The Design Biennale was founded in 1963, and this year it marks the 60th anniversary of the first exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. According to Vardjan, the first exhibition was a pioneering presentation of good design in a very modernist manner, with the underlying idea that well-designed products could change people's lifestyles or ways of life, all closely linked to industrialisation and mass production.

Today, BIO is a hybrid, combining exhibition and production platform, questioning the systems of everyday lives. In the future, it will evolve on the basis of the evaluation of past editions, and draw from the local context and issues, which are of course also relevant in a broader, global context, Vardjan said.

Accompanying programme will include debates, workshops and events all over the capital.