What’s really annoying you right now? What could do your psyche some good? And when was the last time that you said something nice to a stranger? The project designed by Max Scheidl – which takes place in the form of a public intervention and as part of the exhibition in this year’s Festival Headquarters of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK – invites visitors to answer these questions using playful communication tools: Personal stories are collected, technologies questioned, and participants encouraged to share enjoyable and less enjoyable experiences. The project plugs the gap between professional and missing support – thus addressing the stigmatization of psychological stress at exactly a period in which this has become even more urgent: during the pandemic. The intervention generates strategies that, at best, will make us a little more resilient in the face of future challenges. ARTISANS OF PUBLIC PSYCHE was developed in cooperation with the Professional Association of Austrian Psychologists as a diploma project on the Design Investigations course of the University of Applied Art and has been expanded to mark the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2021. 

Festivalzentrale am Sachsenplatz 20., Sachsenplatz 4–6 

The IDRV – Institute of Design Research Vienna investigates how societies form and organize themselves in physical and digital spaces. One tool employed by the participative project is a shared Google Docs file at the web address im20.wien, where the collective know-how of the district community can be retrieved. With the help of technology that is easily accessible (and should also be critically discussed) and used by social and political (protest) movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the knowledge of a wide range of people can be rapidly collected, simply structured, and made available to everyone. During the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, the resulting pool of information about local initiatives and ideas regarding social, ecological, and economic coexistence in the 20th district are being made visible in the urban realm as a means of generating a dialog between festival visitors and the residents of Brigittenau. 

New York’s High Line is world famous. But what many people don’t know is that Vienna also has a former railway viaduct that has been unused for years. The project MISSING-LINK is addressing this existing infrastructural situation between Vienna’s 19th and 20th districts and finding a use for the nine-meter wide and one-kilometer-long space by creating a previously missing constructional link between the Franz-Ippisch-Steg and the track bed of the abandoned Stadtbahn train. The route to Vienna’s High Line Park isn’t a long one: Only a few steps are required to overcome the height difference between the Steg and the former railway. As a result, the wasteland above the arches of the Stadtbahn will be accessible for the duration of the festival, creating an open space that will be occupied by a range of actors exactly where this was previously neither possible nor customary. This will permit the investigation of how places can strengthen communities and benefit both locals and passers-by – with the aim of encouraging possible future use.

MISSING-LINK
19., Franz-Ippisch-Steg (Aufgang Rampengasse nahe Heiligenstädter Straße)