\EXCITING days are ahead for Cebu’s creative scene with Design Week coming up from June 16 to 23. Organized by the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation Inc. (CFIF) with the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) and co-presented by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Province of Cebu, Design Week unites the players in Cebu’s creative scene in a series of events that will move “from the mountains to the city to the sea.”

CFIF has already collaborated with Cebu Gifts, Toys, and Houseware Foundation and Cebu Fashion Accessories Manufacturers and Exporters Foundation to come up with a showcase of Cebu’s products last year in Manila and early this year with a similar showcase in SM City Cebu. It is planning again for the group to showcase Cebu next year in Europe, with DTI’s help.

Cebu Design Week, part of the many activities for the Cebu Business Month (CBM) in June, aims to unite all entities in Cebu’s creative scene with the many activities the organizing group has lined up for that week.

CFIF president Angela Paulin and executive consultant Ruby Salutan said that the point of all this is to bring back Cebu’s creativity and design scene in the “limelight.” So the week is not just about furniture (of which Paulin is a maker) and handicrafts but has been planned “for a series of multi-format events that span a wide range of disciplines that comprise Cebu’s creative ecosystem: furniture and home, architecture, culinary, events, fashion, film and animation, information technology, health and wellness, hospitality and tourism, music, performing arts, photography and visual arts.”

In an informal talk with the key players of Design Week organized by SM City Cebu’s assistant mall manager Maria Teresa J. Mempin and SM senior PR manager for VisMin RJ Leduna, SunStar Cebu learned from ECCP’s Butch Carungay that Design Week will kick off on June 16 in the “mountains,”—in Foressa in Balamban—with a Spartan race and wellness fest (featuring wellness alternatives like yoga, meditation, Reiki healing).

CFIF’s Lovely Flores and Alreen Jumar Omang said that in the “city,” there will be art in the park for the whole week in Museo Sugbo. At the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu, there will be a two-day Sparkfest and Arts and Makers Market (June 16 and 17). And on June 20 and 21, there will be Binisaya Film and Music Fest at the Greenery.

There will also be pocket conferences in several venues and Cebu province has come up with a Bojo River Eco Tour for June 16 to 18. Among other affiliated activities will be CBM’s Innovation Summit (June 19 to 21) at the Cebu City Waterfront Hotel and Casino and Design Center of the Philippines’ Design Bootcamp and Make-a-Thon at UP Cebu’s Fablab (June 20 to 22).

To cap all these activities will be a grand creative festival in Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa, Cebu (the “sea” part of the week), said Butch Carungay and ECC’s James Doran-Webb, who will be exhibiting some of his sculptures made from “dead” wood. Though Doran-Webb will be out of the country on that date because he will exhibiting his other sculptures in Europe. It will be a fun day with all of Cebu’s creative innovators displaying their products-furniture, jewelry, arts and crafts and yes, street food at the hotel’s marquee.

With all these activities, Cebu Design Week will surely accomplish the aims of its proponents especially for its “enabler,” DTI 7 Director Aster Caberte, who enumerated them as follows: “To bring focus to Cebu as a creative city, to inspire the youth to join our industry, to inspire creativity that will lead to developing new designs, to generate sales leads for our companies, and to be leaders in the Cebu creative movement.”

This article was originally published in SunStar Philippines on April 28, 2018»