"BIZNES meble.pl" international 1/2018

report X the potential of Polish design 6 BIZNES meble.pl [ international edition 1/2018 I t is February 2013. At the stand of the Kinnarps company on the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, a press briefing is going to be held with the de- signer who established coope- ration with the Swedish producer. The stand has two levels, so when you are at the very top you can see the whole fair alley and the woman walking along the exhibition, surrounded by the crowd. It is Bea Szenfeld (originally Beata Szen- feld, a Polish-born designer) who moved to Sweden with her parents. She is famo- us for creating spectacular paper outfits. One of her best-known creations is the one she designed for Björk. Daniel Libeskind was just 11 years old when he left Poland. This architect from Łódź is one of the leading representatives of deconstructivism. Jerzy Zalszupin was also born in Poland, he left for Brazil in 1949 and his name became one of the best known in Brazilian design. Three different careers, three great personali- ties – this is really just the beginning. TOMORROW IS TODAY Last year for the first time in history, at the exhibition ‘Polish Design. Tomor- row is today’ in Milan, the departments of design of Polish state universities were presented. The artistic director of the ex- hibition was Dorota Koziara, a designer promoting Polish design for many years. She went to Italy for a scholarship, and during a conference in Rome she met Alessandro Mendini, who offered her an internship. An internship at the Mendini Atelier, and then a long-term cooperation with the Mendini brothers was for me the most important international lesson of design – recalls Dorota Koziara. – There, for the first time I worked on projects for famous, shaping the face of contemporary design brands, such as Alessi, Swatch, Bisazza, Abet Laminati, Hermes, Fonda- They have different predispositions. There are those who went abroad to study and do internships, and then returned to the country and now cooperate with foreign companies remotely. Some are still travelling between their family home and their foreign studio, others have stayed abroad, working on their own or in design studios. With no complexes, without inflated PR campaigns, Polish designers know very well what they want from life and from the world of design and do not hesitate to reach for it. Here are their stories. POLISH DESIGNERS ARE CROSSING BORDERS A n n a S z y p u l s k a Dorota Koziara and Alessandro Mendini on the ‘Polish Design.Tomorrow is today’exhibition at Superstudio Più in Milan.The original arrangement designed by Dorota Koziara Studio was based on the idea of open books describing the history of each university separately and was aimed to bring the specificity of teaching, and the unique approach to contemporary design in Poland. Eight Polish state universities participated in the exhibition: the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, theWładysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, the University of the Arts in Poznań, the Academy of Art in Szczecin, the Academy of Fine Arts inWarsaw and the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts inWrocław. Photo by Karol Janiak.