The UnBox festival represents a macrocosm of the beliefs and ideas that emanate from the four individual practices that lie at its core—Quicksand Design Studio, Codesign, B.L.O.T. and Blind Boys. The spirit of the four-day festival is amplified by the incredible diversity of perspectives that additional practices and practitioners have brought to the table over the past years. Together, UnBox gives us, as a collective, an opportunity to be less pragmatic and more adventurous in exploring some of the fundamental values that have inspired our respective lines of thought and work.
Mixing Business, Social & Personal
On the surface, there are no direct links between the work spheres of a business entrepreneur, a human rights activist, and an artist absorbed in the minutiae of everyday aesthetics. And yet, the nature of these pursuits is essentially human—inspired by a shared need to make an impact driven by a sense of fairness and a desire to be authentic. The ability to bring together these disparate lifestyles and world-views suddenly opens a realm of possibilities that would otherwise lay dormant. These are the possibilities that UnBox uncovers, bringing people and ideas together, finding meaning where they intersect.
Education
UnBox creates a platform for the inquisitive, inventive and resourceful to augment their education through discussion, interaction and hands-on learning—which is especially rare outside the traditional notion of classroom contexts. UnBox aspires to be a platform for those who are eager to reinvent their practices and engage with real issues as a form of learning in a highly collaborative setting.
Entrepreneurship
At the heart of it, Unbox represents the strong entrepreneurial conviction of converting idea to reality. The festival is charged with a certain restlessness resulting from the dryness of traditional educational mediums and their lack of emphasis on creative output. Creative entrepreneurial instinct is one of the ways people at UnBox connect with the transformative realities that are taking place every day in our society.
In the process of anchoring and organizing two editions of the festival, we have sought to constantly explore these conversations and collaborations. Often messy and complex, they are ultimately inspiring within the possibilities and mind-spaces that they reveal.
It is all these reasons that make it incredibly hard to present UnBox as any one thing. For all its seeming chaos and madness, UnBox’s tagline describes it better than anything else—‘Action at the Intersections!’
