THE SYMBOL Exemplifying our philosophy of design, the common iron boot scraper that is found in the city of Athens is a testament to the history of design within the urban metropolis. The simple, evocative form, outlines the depth to which design makes itself manifest in the most humble of transitional spaces.

THE MOVEMENT Founded by Katerina Papanikolopoulos in 2021, the non-profit Athens Design Forum (ADF) advocates for overlooked and generative design histories interwoven with global labor and migration patterns. Papanikolopoulos’ curatorial programming prioritizes photography and film as integral, critical methodologies to decipher design’s social role.

ADF’s 2021 inaugural programming shaped 12 events in 7 Athenian neighborhoods – broadening the international recognition of contemporary Athens through a cultural narrative axis. In 2022, ADF launched international collaborations with ROUTE-IN by Tbilisi-based Rooms Studio and CHTHONIC by Peter Speliopoulos during Milan Design Week 2022. As a cultural partner of Collectible Fair 2022, ADF introduced a retrospective of Palestinian designer Dima Srouji in Brussels, Belgium. ADF’s ‘IN-PRAXIS’ Interview Series (2022) brought forth features with photographers François Halard and Hassan Kurbanbaev, followed by a special interview with Trabzon-born designer Sera Oltan.

For Milan Design Week 2023, ADF partnered with Cinema Parentesi, presenting the films Chircales (Colombia, Marta Rodriguez – Jorge Silva) and El Batikha (Egypt, Mohamed Khan) at BASE Milano. In Fall 2023, ADF presented The Potent Image of Yugantar Collective, a double-screening and accompanying interview with director Deepa Dhanraj, shared for the first time in Greece, and published The Vithoulkas Archive, a prominent photographic archive of Greek furniture restoration from 1945-1970 encapsulating three generations of craftsmen. In April 2024, Athens Design Forum co-curated with Isabella Barkett ‘THE ECHO OF THE FEAST THAT CALLS ME’, a double-screening of  Izza Genini’s Aïta (1988, 26’) and Hicham Gardaf’s In Praise of Slowness (2023, 17’) for DOPO? in Milan, investigating sonic landscapes’ relation to space and the inhabitants therein. A feature interview in conversation with Gardaf, The Labyrinth of Sound, followed the screening.

Launching an online editorial in 2024, ADF has since programmed special features and interviews with Dima Srouji (The Land of Glass), Gassia Armenian (The Architecture of Armenian Lace) Yannis Drakoulidis (Portrait of a Space, Kozani), Georges Salameh (Lament of the Absent Waters), Avrilios Karakostas (The Dialectic of Mountains), and Museo Carlo Mollino (The Skin of River Po, Carlo Mollino).

ADF is featured in over 24 leading international and regional publications, among them Architectural Digest, DOMUS, Wallpaper* and Office Magazine, while ADF’s digital presence engages audiences from over ninety-six countries.