Reykjavík as Method: Helga Ólafsdóttir on DesignMarch, Cultural Legacy and What Comes After the Festival

For years, DesignMarch has offered Reykjavík as a meeting point for designers, architects, makers, industries and ideas. Meanwhile, design festivals elsewhere compete for visibility, scale and international relevance. Iceland, however, has developed a different proposition. In its view, the value of a creative platform lies not in how much attention it attracts, but in what it makes possible.

Under Helga Ólafsdóttir’s leadership, the festival has become more than an exhibition calendar. Instead, it is a framework for exchange and a way of bringing creative disciplines into conversation. It is also an invitation to experience design as part of everyday life.

DesignMarch and Cultural Leadership

Yet institutions are also defined by the moments when their leadership changes. As Ólafsdóttir prepares to leave her role as Festival Director next year, the question is less about what she has built than about what should endure. What does it mean to create a cultural platform that can evolve beyond the person directing it? Furthermore, what might Iceland’s design community offer a world preoccupied with visibility, acceleration and the next big thing?

For Ólafsdóttir, the answers lie in a particular understanding of design. It is shaped by Iceland’s geography, resourcefulness and close-knit creative culture. Even so, it is increasingly relevant far beyond the island.

She brings more than 25 years of experience across fashion design, creative direction, entrepreneurship and cultural leadership. As a result, she sees design not simply as a visual language, but as a way of organising relationships between people, materials, ideas and the places they inhabit.

In this conversation, we look beyond the festival to the thinking behind it. We discuss the difference between visibility and value, as well as the responsibility of cultural leadership. Above all, we ask why the future of Nordic design may depend less on aesthetics than on the systems that let creativity thrive.

What Makes DesignMarch Different

IRK: DesignMarch is known for its intimacy and openness rather than the scale of a conventional design fair. What does that distinction make possible?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: I hope people leave feeling inspired, but also connected. DesignMarch has never been about scale or spectacle for its own sake. There is something quite intimate about Iceland and our creative community, and I think people feel that when they come here.

Instead, we want visitors to experience design not as something distant or exclusive, but as a conversation. It should feel human, emotional, and deeply connected to everyday life.

I have more than 25 years of experience in design, as a fashion designer, creative director, founder and now Festival Director. Because of that, I have deep respect for the creative process behind the finished work. So I think it is important that people can encounter that process, not only the final result.

Beyond Nordic Minimalism

IRK: Icelandic design is often described through a particular visual language: minimalism, restraint, natural materials. Has that description become too narrow?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: I think people sometimes reduce Nordic design to a visual style: minimalism, neutral colours, clean lines. At its core, however, Nordic design is about values: functionality, accessibility, sustainability, social responsibility and quality of life.

Iceland also adds another layer. It is something more raw and intuitive, shaped by island life and natural forces.

In fact, I think people are longing for honesty. Icelandic design often comes from necessity, from closeness to materials, nature and limited resources. As a result, it is rarely about excess. There is a certain calm and sincerity in that approach, and perhaps that feels refreshing in a very noisy world.

After all, simplicity, when it is meaningful, can be incredibly powerful.

Building an International Platform Without Losing Its Voice

IRK: You have spent years building an international platform around a relatively small creative community. How do you make international visibility serve Icelandic design, rather than simply expose it to the global market?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: For us, authenticity comes from supporting the local creative community first. DesignMarch is built by Icelandic designers, architects, artists, makers and thinkers, and their voices shape the festival.

International attention is wonderful. Even so, we never want to become a copy of larger global fairs. The strength of DesignMarch lies precisely in its distinct perspective, its closeness and its openness.

Having worked internationally throughout my career, I see how important it is to build bridges without losing our own voice. In other words, the challenge is to stay curious and open while being very clear about who you are and what you want to contribute.

DesignMarch and the Attention Economy

IRK: Design festivals increasingly operate within an attention economy. What gets lost when design is presented mainly through images, social media and visual spectacle?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: What gets lost is the real encounter, because people still need real experiences. So much of our world is now mediated through screens and algorithms. Yet creativity grows through human interaction.

Design festivals create space for unexpected conversations, collaboration, reflection and curiosity. In this way, they let ideas breathe outside the speed of digital culture.

Of course, visual experiences matter. But the most meaningful moments often happen when people start talking to each other. For example, someone encounters an idea they had never considered, or a conversation leads to something that continues long after the festival. That is difficult to measure, but it is important.

IRK: Is there a tension between creating an internationally attractive festival and protecting the slower, more intimate culture that makes it distinctive?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: I think there is always a balance. On one hand, we want people to come to Iceland and experience the creativity here. On the other, we want the festival to stay connected to the community that makes it possible.

That is why DesignMarch is intentionally open and accessible. The city becomes part of the experience, and people move naturally between exhibitions, studios, talks and informal meetings. Rather than simply observing from a distance, we want people to feel welcome to engage, ask questions and exchange ideas.

For me, growth is not only about becoming bigger. It is also about becoming more meaningful and creating opportunities that last.

Nature, Limits and Sustainability

IRK: Iceland’s relationship with nature is often romanticised internationally. How does the environment actually influence the way designers work, beyond the familiar images of landscapes and natural materials?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: Nature in Iceland is impossible to ignore. The landscape constantly reminds us of both beauty and fragility. Consequently, living so close to powerful natural forces creates a certain awareness of sustainability, materiality and restraint.

For instance, many Icelandic designers work intuitively with light, texture, weather and the emotional atmosphere of the environment, because these elements are part of daily life here.

Still, the important thing is not simply to use nature as inspiration. Rather, it is to understand our relationship with it and the responsibility that comes with it.

IRK: Sustainability has become a global design language. What can Iceland add to that conversation that isn’t already being said?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: Perhaps the value of working with limitations rather than against them.

In Iceland, scarcity historically shaped how people created, built, repaired and reused. In other words, sustainability here was never a trend. It was simply survival and common sense.

There is wisdom in slowing down, using resources carefully and creating things meant to last emotionally as well as physically. Therefore, I think we can learn from that relationship with resources. It encourages us to think about what we really need, what we value and how we can create things that stay relevant over time.

Collaboration and the Next Generation

IRK: You have consistently emphasised collaboration between disciplines. Is collaboration always productive, or can it become a way of avoiding difficult questions about responsibility and authorship?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: The challenges we face today are far too complex to solve within isolated disciplines. For that reason, the future of design lies in collaboration between designers, scientists, technologists, craftspeople, environmental thinkers, policymakers and communities. Creativity becomes much more powerful when different perspectives meet.

But collaboration also requires openness and respect. You need to be willing to listen, to understand different approaches and sometimes to change your own thinking. So it is not simply about bringing people together. Instead, it is about creating the conditions for something meaningful to happen between them.

IRK: What inspires you most about today’s younger generation of creatives? And what are they questioning that previous generations accepted?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: Their openness and fearlessness.

Younger creatives are often much less interested in rigid categories or traditional hierarchies. Instead, they move naturally between disciplines and engage deeply with social and environmental questions.

I also admire their willingness to challenge established systems and redefine what success and creativity can look like. Above all, they are asking important questions about how we work, how we live and what kind of future we want to create. I find that curiosity very inspiring.

What Comes After DesignMarch

IRK: Your departure as Festival Director next year raises another question. How do you know when a cultural institution is ready to move beyond the person leading it?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: I think it is important for any institution to keep evolving.

What excites me most is seeing new ideas, new voices and new collaborations come together every year. In fact, there is always a moment during DesignMarch when the city feels different: more open, more curious, more alive. That energy continues to drive me.

The challenge, then, is to keep evolving without losing the intimacy and authenticity that make the festival special.

As a designer myself, I know how important it is that a platform like DesignMarch doesn’t only present finished work. It should also support the people, processes, risks and ambitions behind it.

In the same way, a cultural platform should create opportunities for people to grow, contribute and develop their own ideas. It should not depend on one person, but on a community that believes in what it is doing.

A Lasting Legacy for DesignMarch

IRK: Looking back, what do you hope remains of your approach to DesignMarch after your time as Festival Director?

Helga Ólafsdóttir: I hope DesignMarch continues to be an international meeting point for design, architecture, craft, fashion, innovation and culture, while staying deeply rooted in Iceland.

I want it to be a place where Icelandic creativity meets the world. Ideally, it is also where meaningful conversations lead to real opportunities for designers and the wider creative community.

What matters to me is that the festival keeps supporting people, encouraging curiosity and creating connections that extend beyond the event itself.

Of course, there is always more to do, and I think that is exciting. Finally, I hope the next chapter brings new perspectives and new energy, while building on the community and values that have shaped DesignMarch.

Reykjavík as Method: The Legacy of DesignMarch

Perhaps the most revealing part of Helga Ólafsdóttir’s approach is that it resists the idea of a single, definitive outcome. A festival can present work, but it can also create the conditions in which work develops. Similarly, it can attract an audience, but it can also build relationships that outlast the event. And a director can shape an institution without needing to remain at its centre.

As Ólafsdóttir prepares to leave DesignMarch, her legacy is not simply a festival that has grown more visible internationally. Rather, it is an approach to cultural leadership that puts community before spectacle, exchange before hierarchy and long-term value before immediate attention.

That distinction matters in a design culture increasingly shaped by circulation. Today, objects are photographed before they are experienced, ideas are compressed into content, and institutions are often judged by their reach.

Reykjavík, however, offers another possibility. It is not a style to export or a formula to reproduce, but a method: build from the place you inhabit, stay open to the world and understand design as a practice of connection.

In the end, the future of Nordic design may not be found in a particular aesthetic. Instead, it may be found in the relationships that allow design to matter.

And perhaps the truest measure of a cultural platform is not how indispensable its director becomes, but how much possibility remains when that director moves on.

To explore further, visit the official festival overview and read more of IRK’s design coverage.

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