REDO Graphic Design Conference

REDO marked its 9th edition last year – an important milestone – and we were excited to be working again with IPKO Foundation. In its early days, IF was one of the few supporters that believed in our mission. IPKO Foundation was the first to lay the “foundation” of the event that would span 9 editions – and counting.

REDO is a three-day event that moves between various spaces of Prishtina, bringing together designers from all over the world to create a discourse around the current issues within the practice of graphic design and visual arts. Through a series of talks, workshops, books, and tours of the city, REDO provides an opportunity for designers and visual artists to get together in and around the city of Prishtina. Organized since 2011, REDO has become one of the most sought-after designs and art-related events in the world, attracting hundreds of designers, artists and students from some of the most important design schools, academies and institutions in Europe and beyond. The organizers see REDO as an alternative school, where lectures, workshops, discussions, music events and various other activities take place.

REDO has a strong relationship with design schools in Europe, specifically with Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, University of the Arts in Bremen, ENSBA in Lyon and Zurich University of the Arts and is in the process of creating an exchange program between students from Kosovo and the students in the above-mentioned design schools and academies. As a result of such collaboration, the team at REDO successfully encouraged and facilitated the registration process for the talented Zgjim Elshani (Angry Youth collective) into the Gerrit Rietvelt Academie.

REDO is a fierce supporter of gender equality within the design and art disciplines. In 2018, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) featured REDO on AIGA Eye on Design magazine, where – based on thorough research – REDO was ranked as the best performer when it comes to a gender-balance speaker line-up and speaker talk-time. The most important design events were on that list, with REDO being on top.

In 2014, we edited and facilitated an issue of Fabriekzeitung magazine, featuring texts and images from Kosovar and Swiss writers in the context of Kosovar diaspora in Switzerland. In 2013 German artist Stefan Marx published a mini-magazine about Prishtina as a result of his participation at REDO, which later on was shown in Los Angeles and New York Art book fair.

The activities and program of REDO have been published widely in books and magazines worldwide such as Etapes Magazine (France), Signals from the Periphery (Estonia), Neon Moire (Netherlands), Fanfare (Netherlands), FORM Magazine (Germany), and Designed (Serbia).

Our program has been presented in the following institutions and schools: Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL), Kunsthalle Wien (AT), Sandberg Institute (NL), National School of Fine Arts (FR), Bratislava Design Festival (SK). Most recently REDO was featured on “Extra Curricular”, a book on and around the topic of self-organized learning, curriculum, experiments and alternatives in graphic design education.