One foot in plaster, the other on the dance floor. Iva Bittová next to MAT 213, Cirk La Putyka's fountain of youth versus forty tonnes of dead fish from the Bečva. Ice cream and windmill cakes, Neapolitan pizza in hand and lunch off a plate with cutlery. Designers searching for the path to a product, and music legends who found their place long ago. Young guns, new circus, old industrial heritage. All of this comes together this year at WiFič VEN! The emotional harvest takes place on 28 and 29 August at the Pole designu campus at Bílovice 519.
Find the complete line-up here.
There are situations where what you're going to isn't so important — what matters more is where you're stepping. WiFič VEN! isn't just a programme spread across two days. It's an invitation to Pole designu — a place we're gradually shaping for production, education, culture and rest, for people to whom that combination makes sense. This year, what has grown right here on our own ground blends with what we've carefully brought in from elsewhere. Exhibitions, music, talks, installations, movement, design, and the ordinary moments in between.
What's in store
Concerts: Prago Union, Ohm Square 30, Midi Lidi and 13 more
Talks: Lucie Výborná, Richard Vodička and their 14 guests
Exhibitions: Doba sádrová, Žně designu and 3 more
Theatre and performance: Cirk La Putyka, Spitfire Company, Kam jdeš? and 3 more
Programme for children: Tornádo Luuu, Mary C and 14 more activities
Our field. What has grown here this year?
Festivals offer a programme. We offer that too, plus the place it's rooted in. That place is Pole designu. Once an agricultural brownfield among the fields beyond the village, now steadily being transformed into a place where production, education and culture meet. Industrial heritage steeped in greenery. A place where ideas grow into products. So what can you taste from our harvest?
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industrial exhibition Žně designu
To map the current landscape, to raise awareness of the quality of designers and makers. That was the ambition behind the industrial exhibition Žně designu. After three years of searching, we've found the ideal content and form for this year. We'll be presenting selected everyday products from across the Central European region.
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exhibition Doba sádrová
An era when form didn't take shape on a screen, but directly in the material. The blueprint of a product's future proportions was first born in a neutral white plaster model – under the hands of sculptors, or of those who learned from them. It's here, in search of the DNA of their own design process, that Egoé's designers arrived…
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Idea Market by Egoé
A look at how products can shape experiences in both the public and private sphere. A cross-section of everything Egoé designs and makes at Pole designu. Street furniture, station canopies, camper van conversions, skis or outdoor furniture. Not a showroom, but a stage set with atmosphere. -
exhibition Lidová škola života (Folk School of Life)
Long before they began giving shape to Egoé's products and to the Pole designu campus, they were trying their hand at drawing, watercolour, linocut or working with modelling clay. The exhibition prepared for WiFič VEN! shows the childhood work of the very people who today design, make and sell what we do at Egoé.
Marketplace of experiences. What we've brought in from elsewhere
Food? Not just street food, but plates and cutlery too
This year's food offering works just like the whole of WiFič VEN!: part of it has grown right here on the field, part we've carefully brought in from elsewhere. Its backbone will be the campus's permanent venues – the proper café, Café 519, and the PAPA FOOD restaurant in the Field Canteen, where you eat at tables, off plates, with cutlery. The same building is also home to Minipole, a large indoor play area for children.
All in one place you'll find Thai street food from Bangkok On Wheels, Neapolitan pizza from Narcis Ritual, Belgian fries from U Prezidenta and grilled meat from Hustá hospoda in Klečůvka. Specialty coffee will be brewed by Fiery Bean, drinks and sodas brought by Gulliver, wine by Winaři, and beer from Slovácko will be handled by Jarošovský pivovar. From a full meal through a quick bite to coffee, wine or beer – the food line-up will have its own varied dramaturgy.
A children's programme that's come of age
At WiFič VEN!, the children's programme is traditionally all grown up. It isn't tucked away in one corner of the campus, nor built purely around minding the little ones, but weaves together theatre, music, creative making, movement and discovery. Children can be spectators as much as active participants, and plenty of activities are open to parents too.
Specific highlights include Tornádo Luuu making ice cream and windmill cakes, a music workshop by the Synth Library, and a screen-printing workshop where children and adults alike can make their own WiFič VEN! T-shirt. There are also movement activities from Dýchej pro street and HEPA Outdoor Fitness, creative making at the Art Reformatory, and a theatre and music programme from Braňa Jobus or Vanda Kavková. And that's only part of the offering — further workshops, games and small interventions will be scattered right across the campus.
Music across genres
Pole designu's musical dramaturgy pays no attention to genre or popularity. But it has never been this varied before. We're offering legends, alternative sounds for the more demanding listener, and a showcase of the up-and-coming generation. It's not about pleasing everyone. We want to show that different musical worlds can naturally exist side by side – and that it's precisely their collision that creates an atmosphere you can't plan for by ticking boxes.
Talks on two fronts
Lucie Výborná, a WiFič VEN! regular, will lead personal conversations with guests whose work is well known, though their life stories rather less so. Sitting across from her will be writer Jaroslav Rudiš, musician and actress Iva Bittová, actress Vica Kerekes, and Czech Television reporter Josef Kvasnička, who had to learn to speak again after a serious illness and managed to return in front of the camera. The talks will open up themes of creative work, identity, career decisions, and the moments that unexpectedly change a person's life.
The second strand, put together by Pole designu curator Richard Vodička, focuses on the journey from idea to finished product. Alongside standalone conversations with designers Anna Marešová and Ondřej Václavík, it will also feature joint discussions with people who design, manufacture and bring products to market. These will bring together Plastia with studio WRKS, the founders of the Braasi brand, and traditional eyewear maker OKULA with studio Optiqa. The talks will cover designers' collaboration with manufacturers, Czech production, and everything that has to happen for a good design not to stay stuck on paper.
Theatre and performance
The movement programme brings together new circus, contemporary dance, physical theatre and acrobatics. Cirk La Putyka will bring the show SPLASH, in which four older gentlemen discover, in a forgotten swimming pool, the fountain of youth — and with it the lost joy of movement. Spitfire Company will present the production Vivat Messi, Slovak group Jedným dychom will perform their project Argo and Astor, and Michal Heriban will present the dance solo Nový ornament, in which the human body becomes an image of the contemporary world.
The straight drama strand is represented by the company Kam jdeš? with the production Bečva (true crime). This documentary theatre piece returns to the 2020 environmental disaster in which forty tonnes of fish died in the Bečva river, and to the investigation that followed, full of ambiguities and absurdities. Three actresses play more than twenty characters between them during the show – from politicians and journalists to fishermen and investigators. The production weaves together real events, music, exaggeration and bitter humour.
