The Conclusion of RogCreathon with Exceptional Solutions

The mentors of the winning team were product designers Lei and Jovana Zhang (China, Serbia), who also discovered Slovenian craftsmanship through the project and were surprised by the richness of its tradition. “Ljubljana is not a big city, which makes it even more impressive that it has such a significant institution like Center Rog, attracting such a wide range of creators from various fields and challenging them to create. They have access to high-quality equipment, mentors with extensive knowledge, and, of course, their support,” said Jovana Zhang. Mingyu Xu, a furniture designer working between London and Shanghai and a member of the winning team, mentioned that he would apply the skills learned in his future creations. Andreja Benedejčič, who is part of the Mladi Rog program, added that exploring the connection between traditional crafts and artificial intelligence was particularly interesting. “Our team didn’t face major challenges, but the AI did—it seemed to get tired of all our demands and refused to generate more images of traditional patterns,” she joked.

From AI-Craft Fusion to a Wooden Cradle

Under the guidance of local and international mentors, the creations responded to the challenges in diverse ways. These included: Baskets and lamps made from scrap metal and tires (Challenge 1: CREATIVE ENHANCEMENT OF INDUSTRIAL WASTE under the mentorship of Swedish-Icelandic product designer Anna Gudmundsdottir), a yurt as a meeting space (Challenge 2: EVERY STRANGER IS A WELCOME GUEST under the mentorship of Kazakh architect Asel Yeszhanova), dresses featuring traditional hand embroidery (Challenge 3: ZERO WASTE - FROM TRASH TO STYLE under the mentorship of Cuban fashion designer Lauren Fajardo), the solutions crafted by the winning team and finally, two wooden cradle prototypes, Nest and The Egg (Challenge 5: WOOD DESIGN - FUSION OF TRADITION AND INNOVATION under the mentorship of industrial designer Rok Kuhar). “For young people, creathon is an important experience because it forces them to make quick decisions, including letting go of an idea, which can be difficult, especially when hitting a wall in the development process,” said Rok Kuhar. Despite working with students regularly, he noted that what makes RogCreathon special is “bringing together people who don’t know each other into an effective team that will make decisions and work toward a common goal, even if they don’t always agree.”

Due to the outstanding work of all the teams, the jury decided to award prizes to all participants. As Center Rog Director Renata Zamida stated during the announcement of results, “All RogCreathon participants did an excellent job, which is why international participants will receive a two-week group residency, and local team members will be awarded annual memberships and a one-month user package for Center Rog.”

Dayana Valdés Cureau from Cuba, a fashion designer, is already looking forward to applying her newfound knowledge of architecture to her next project: “I want to create a dress made of wood, so I’m very excited to develop this idea further during the two-week residency in the textile and woodworking labs.”

All the works created are now on display at the RogExpo exhibition.

Photo: Tine Lisjak