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Mapping What Matters is a platform dedicated to critical design thinking, exchange, and contemporary graphic design practice.

Mapping What Matters is conceived as a one-day event in Bratislava, Slovakia, it brings together lectures, discussions, a curated exhibition, and a mini book fair, creating a space for professional exchange, learning, and collective reflection. Each edition of Mapping What Matters is developed in close collaboration with a different invited curator. 

The curator selects the speakers and shapes the concept of the accompanying exhibition, ensuring that both the program and the visual narrative reflect a coherent vision. This rotating curatorial model allows the platform to remain open, plural, and responsive, while continuously reframing what matters in contemporary graphic design through distinct perspectives and methodologies.

Curator 2026

Ľubica Segečová (SK), a graphic designer and co-founder of the studio trivjednom and the festival Self, has long been engaged in exploring the overlaps between design and social and educational contexts. When developing the program for the inaugural edition of the conference, she drew on her own “mapping what matters” within contemporary theory and practice of visual communication, graphic design, and typography.

Together with the conference founders, Terezia Denkova and Barbara Kowalczuk, she led intensive discussions about the current scene and about the role of graphic design, publishing, and education — it was precisely from these conversations that the conference title ultimately emerged.

The selection of invited speakers maps various positions within the discipline: from type design, pedagogical practices, and publishing to writing and contemporary author-driven design approaches. Although the invited figures differ in medium and field of practice, they are united by a critical approach to creation, cross-disciplinary overlaps, engagement with the contemporaneity of forms, and a commitment to addressing important issues.

The conference will also feature a reprise of the interactive exhibition project Temporary Library from 2017, which was the final edition of the Self festival (Ľubica Segečová, Eva Šimovičová, Maria Rišková). Over the course of a single day, a temporary archive and reading room of approximately 25 publications released in the past five years will be created. The selection is being prepared by the conference speakers in collaboration with other invited figures from the field of visual communication.

Each edition of Mapping What Matters is developed in close collaboration with a different invited curator. The curator selects the speakers and shapes the concept of the accompanying exhibition, ensuring that both the program and the visual narrative reflect a coherent vision. This rotating curatorial model allows the platform to remain open, plural, and responsive, while continuously redefining what matters in contemporary graphic design through distinct perspectives and methodologies.

Team

Mapping What Matters was initiated by a group of young designers driven by the desire to create a platform rooted in curiosity, dialogue, and a shared interest in understanding how graphic design operates within broader cultural and social contexts. The project grows out of long-term engagement with publishing, education, and discursive practice, and aims to foster a professional community based on exchange rather than competition.

The core organizational team consists of Terézia Denková (Co-founder, Concept & Program Dramaturgy), Barbara Kowalczuková (Co-founder, Partnerships), Paula Poštolková (Production), Ilja Tsutskiridze (Production), Katarína Hrašková (PR and Social Media), Peter Pozník (Web Design), TaB Studio (Visual Identity), Michal Baláž (Copywriting), Lukáš Radošovský (Architecture), Matej Mihályi (Animation).

Mapping What Matters is a platform dedicated to critical design thinking, exchange, and contemporary graphic design practice.

Mapping What Matters is conceived as a one-day event in Bratislava, Slovakia, it brings together lectures, discussions, a curated exhibition, and a mini book fair, creating a space for professional exchange, learning, and collective reflection. Each edition of Mapping What Matters is developed in close collaboration with a different invited curator. 

Curator 2026

Ľubica Segečová (SK), a graphic designer and co-founder of the studio trivjednom and the festival Self, has long been engaged in exploring the overlaps between design and social and educational contexts. When developing the program for the inaugural edition of the conference, she drew on her own “mapping what matters” within contemporary theory and practice of visual communication, graphic design, and typography.

Together with the conference founders, Terezia Denkova and Barbara Kowalczuk, she led intensive discussions about the current scene and about the role of graphic design, publishing, and education — it was precisely from these conversations that the conference title ultimately emerged.

The selection of invited speakers maps various positions within the discipline: from type design, pedagogical practices, and publishing to writing and contemporary author-driven design approaches. Although the invited figures differ in medium and field of practice, they are united by a critical approach to creation, cross-disciplinary overlaps, engagement with the contemporaneity of forms, and a commitment to addressing important issues.

The conference will also feature a reprise of the interactive exhibition project Temporary Library from 2017, which was the final edition of the Self festival (Ľubica Segečová, Eva Šimovičová, Maria Rišková). Over the course of a single day, a temporary archive and reading room of approximately 25 publications released in the past five years will be created. The selection is being prepared by the conference speakers in collaboration with other invited figures from the field of visual communication.

Each edition of Mapping What Matters is developed in close collaboration with a different invited curator. The curator selects the speakers and shapes the concept of the accompanying exhibition, ensuring that both the program and the visual narrative reflect a coherent vision. This rotating curatorial model allows the platform to remain open, plural, and responsive, while continuously redefining what matters in contemporary graphic design through distinct perspectives and methodologies.

Team

Mapping What Matters was initiated by a group of young designers driven by the desire to create a platform rooted in curiosity, dialogue, and a shared interest in understanding how graphic design operates within broader cultural and social contexts. The project grows out of long-term engagement with publishing, education, and discursive practice, and aims to foster a professional community based on exchange rather than competition.

The core organizational team consists of Terézia Denková (Co-founder, Concept & Program Dramaturgy), Barbara Kowalczuková (Co-founder, Partnerships), Paula Poštolková (Production), Ilja Tsutskiridze (Production), Katarína Hrašková (PR and Social Media), Peter Pozník (Web Design), TaB Studio (Visual Identity), Michal Baláž (Copywriting), Lukáš Radošovský (Architecture), Matej Mihályi (Animation).

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