The Distributed Design Platform project has helped the habitants of the island of Vestmannaeyjar in Iceland to create new opportunities connecting creatives to different industries around fishing, research, tourism and culinary industry.

In the project artists, designers and other creatives have designed and produced objects made around historical sites that disappeared in the volcanic eruption in 1973 and around cultural heritage around the fishing industry. One of the outcomes was establishing an annual seafood festival on the island, where creatives, musicians, and local artists show their work and where international guest chefs come to create new ways of using local products for the guests. This festival has now led to the island being listed as one of 52 places to travel to in 2024 in the New York Times and the Vestmannaeyjar islands are now renowned to be the food capital of Iceland. (1, 2)

Distributed Design Platform brings knowledge around Food Ecosystems

During the summer of 2023 we welcomed two visitors: Stefano Maffei and Massimo Bianchini from Polimi, Politecnico di Milano, members of the DDP platform community. They explored our island, various aspects of the blue economy and our food ecosystem. They made visits to various industrial partners of the fishing industry and of the tourism industry.

Interesting discussions with the local people and leaders of fishing companies were had about the various ways of making the fishing industry more sustainable. Stefano and Massimo shared their interesting perspective of the island economy, and their expertise in sustainability, distributed and sustainable design. They had a lecture about their project around Distributed Food Factory and explained how that could be implemented on our island.

We had discussions around local and global food systems and distribution. Together, we explored packaging around our fish products and discussed how we could minimize it and use more sustainable materials when exporting our fish products. We explored fish factories and discussed how a better design of the packaging could increase the value of the products. 

We also discussed how the DDP and Make.Works platforms had been an important factor in connecting artists, makers, fishing industry and tourism industry when establishing the annual seafood festival where local food and cultural heritage is celebrated.  An important event where knowledge transfer between various industries of fishing, design, tourism and gastronomy  industry is pursued.

One of the results from this visit is that we will be including distributed design methodology and methodology from Polimis Distributed Food Factory into our innovation camp around the blue economy that will be held on the island. Knowledge Center Vestmannaeyjar Iceland / Fab Lab Vestmannaeyjar works to create new opportunities for the island around the blue economy and will hold a Blue Innovation Camp in April 2024.