26 March 2019

MINI’s €10k bursary prize for Body & Soul Festival


Have you the skills to design a stage installation space exclusively for MINI at this year’s Body & Soul Music and Arts Festival, writes Trish Whelan. 

With a giant MINI bursary prize of €10,000, the open competition pays tribute to the original MINI, launched 60 years ago in 1959. Its inventor Sir Alec Issigonis set up a secret design team office to develop a small car that would break all the rules of car engineering at the time.

With the theme ‘Creative Use of Space’, the installation will pay homage to the iconic car that is renowned for its original and unconventional approach to design. MINI has devised the bursary to also showcase its creative solutions approach for Future Urban Living Spaces across its MINI Living, URAN X and A/D.O brands.

60 years of MINI.
This is an opportunity to work with the team of creatives that includes Mary Pike, Body & Soul Head of Design and Hollywood Prop Maker (Avatar, Mad Max etc); Nathalie Weadick, Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation, and Avril Stanley, Body & Soul Founder and Festival Visionary.

Original 1958 design sketch concept
The Body & Soul festival takes place on 21-23 June 2019 at Ballinlough Castle, in Co Westmeath. It is renowned for its nurturing ethos towards designers and creatives that represent a fresh new generation of break-through and emerging Irish talent. 

Through the festival weekend, the MINI Stage will be home to talk sessions featuring special guests from the design and automotive worlds. A key criteria for the winning design is that it will become a focal point for photos, be architecturally interesting and visually striking, and serve as a communal area to meet your MINI tribe. The competition is open to anyone who thinks they have what it takes to design an architecturally inspiring space. 

Austin Behan, General Manager for MINI Ireland, says the space should blend in harmoniously with the Body & Soul Festival theme, Rituals, and take design cues from the brand’s history and heritage.