Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishEvery spring, Graz—Austria’s dynamic UNESCO City of Design—transforms into a playground for the world’s most inquisitive, creative, and forward-thinking minds. But this year, something feels different. As we head toward the 2025 edition of Design Month Graz, taking place from May 9 to June 1, the spotlight shifts toward a timely and provocative theme: “The New Real.”A Festival that mirrors our shifting realityWe’re living through a moment where our understanding of “reality” is undergoing a seismic shift. With AI seeping into our creative processes, with the digital world overlapping our physical one, and with immersive tech like AR and VR changing how we experience space and time—how do we begin to define what’s real? This is exactly the kind of question Design Month Graz 2025 wants us to wrestle with.“The New Real” isn’t just a catchy theme—it’s a prompt, a challenge, and an open invitation to explore how design sits at the crossroads of the artificial and the authentic. What happens to creativity when machines co-author our visions? What role do designers play in shaping new virtual realities that are increasingly indistinguishable from the physical world? These aren’t rhetorical questions. The festival dares to ask them directly—and backs them up with a whole month of programming designed to provoke, inspire, and connect.It all begins in MayThe festivities officially kick off the weekend of May 9–11, and the opening is set to be nothing short of electric. On Friday, May 9, the Grand Opening Ceremony will bring together design lovers, professionals, institutions, and curious minds for an evening filled with exhibitions, presentations, and a lively opening party that promises to set the tone for what’s to come. By Saturday, the city begins to buzz.As the day unfolds, three standout exhibitions make their debut:“Rebel Poster”, with a playful and hands-on “Print n Dance” screen-printing session,“Stitching the Centuries”, which reimagines medieval craftsmanship through a contemporary lens,and “T4T – Tools for Transformation”, brought to life by the Industrial Design department at the University of Applied Sciences.A city-wide exploration of designWhile the Hornig Areal—just behind Graz’s main train station—serves as the festival’s heartbeat, events ripple outward across the entire city and even into the surrounding countryside. The festival doesn’t confine design to galleries. It lives in streets, shops, studios, and castles. It’s a living, breathing invitation to wander, wonder, and engage.More than a FestivalWhat makes Design Month Graz so powerful is its ability to bring together not just designers and creatives, but also educators, business leaders, and policymakers. This is where design’s economic and societal impact is made visible, tangible, and above all—discussed.For the team at Creative Industries Styria, the organization behind the event, this festival is part of a larger mission: to strengthen the creative economy, to foster interdisciplinary partnerships, and to open up space for new kinds of conversations. They’ve been at it since 2007—and each edition of Design Month pushes that mission a little further.Ready for “The New Real”?If you’re in design, innovation, tech, or just someone who loves a good deep-dive into what makes our world tick, Design Month Graz 2025 is one for the calendar. Come for the exhibitions, stay for the talks, and leave with your sense of “reality” just a little bit more expanded.
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