Very excited for this new Biennial to hit Havana. With a tagline of Diseño y Prosperidad (Design & Prosperity) the first Design Biennial, called 1ra Bienal de Diseño La Habana — otherwise known as BDHabana 2016—will take place May 14–20, 2016. Open to design students and professionals worldwide, the Biennial’s first edition will feature exhibitions, symposia, and events in Havana, and in Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba.

Coordinated by Roberto Miguel Torres, the Biennial will explore issues of design and industry, creative innovation, and workshops to promote design as an element of socioeconomic development. To celebrate the exchange and promotion in relation to the presence of design in our lives towards a new reality.

Roberto Miguel Torres, who is the general secretary of the event´s Organizing Committee and director of Image and Promotion of the National Office of Design (ONDI), states: “We are referring to an event that will be first carried out on the island and its slogan acquire a higher importance given we are realizing about the presence of the design in our lives, so the prosperity cannot become an abstract concept; on the contrary, it is a necessity.” He added. “How could we have a prosperous nation? It would be by having a vision on the related development and innovation which are concepts that are certainly linked to the design and that is to say the way your office is designed, your house or the computer you are using, for instance, So we just cannot produce what is needed, we need to produce what is competitive, and it is right there where designer´s work starts.” (as reported in Cuban Art News)