By Kwon Mee-yoo
The Seoul Design Fair (SDF), formerly titled the Seoul Design Olympiad, started off 21 days of events Friday, at the Jamsil Sports Complex and four design clusters in the capital city until Oct. 7.
“Design will make Seoulites and visitors happier through the SDF,” Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said at the opening ceremony.
Under the theme of “Design for All,” the third design fair is part of the World Design Capital Seoul 2010 initiative. The fair aims to promote design as a factor of urban competitiveness and allow diverse people to experience effective design in daily life. All events are free except for the Design Seoul International Conference.
“The SDF will be a place where a mother and her child, a great designer and a rookie designer, a producer and a consumer as well as a designer and a businessperson can interact through the means of design,” said Choi Kyung-ran, director general of SDF 2010 and a professor of Interior Design at Kookmin University. “It will play an important role in providing a growth engine for the city by promoting design.”
At the main Jamsil Stadium in southern Seoul, three exhibition halls will show the trends of design worldwide. Renowned architects, Alessandro and Francesco Mendini from Italy, Daniel Libeskind from the United States and Kim Seok-chul of Korea have each designed one of the three pavilions.
The main stadium houses some 40 programs including a Seoul Brand Exhibition, Living in Seoul Exhibition and World City Design Exhibition. Visitors can buy designer products directly at the Seoul Design Market and children can have fun at the Design Playground.
In the four design clusters, a job fair for designers will be held in the Hongik University area and experts will consult those who want to commercialize their design products, while in the Sinsa area in southern Seoul there will be flea markets in Garosu-gil.
To celebrate the Chuseok holiday which falls from Sept. 21 to 23, various cultural events will also be held at the SDF 2010 such as making bibimbap (rice mixed with assorted vegetables) and makgeolli, or Korean rice wine, cocktails.
Foreigners can participate in a cooking contest on Sept. 24, for basic kimchi making and preparing a dish using kimchi. Those who want to enter the competition should register online at www.kfkt.co.kr.
A multicultural festival featuring a fashion show, concerts and traditional games from various countries will be held on Sept. 25. On the same day, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies offers its annual Korea Folk Art Festival as part of SDF 2010, featuring traditional songs and dances from 16 countries in Europe and Africa among other scheduled events.