The uniqueness of every person was emphasised in a variety of ways at the well-attended three-day specialist event "reflektor - Festival of Communication" at the Faculty of Design at Wismar University of Applied Sciences. On Tuesday morning, 8 April 2025, more than 100 participants came to the foyer of Building 7a for the welcome and keynote speech by inclusion activist Raúl Aguayo-Krauthausen, who was connected online. They included students and staff from Wismar UAS, as well as alumni, representatives from various organisations and anyone else who was interested. For the deaf, the speeches were translated live on screens by written interpreters. All venues were barrier-free.
Until Thursday, 10 April 2025, concepts and perspectives on inclusion in a diverse society were presented and discussed. With five specialist lectures, a panel discussion on the topic of "Civil society - current challenges of inclusion and diversity" and 14 workshops, the festival focussed on the topic of "inclusion and exclusion" with a focus on design-related issues. Different facets of the topic were examined in an interdisciplinary manner in order to summarise the results in a concluding poster session and presentation. The desire for more recognition and appreciation of each and every individual and the removal of barriers in design were not just demands, but were also named with concrete proposals. The festival was organised by a team of students from the Communication Design and Media course and the supervising lecturers Prof. Björn Kernspeckt, Prof. Dr. Christine Linke, Prof. Sophia Martineck and Dipl.-Des. Mirko Leyh.
The opening event of the 2023 festival was dedicated to the topic of "Communication Overkill". This year, the second festival in the "reflektor" series took place in cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. It was supported by the Kultur Land MV and the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the IDA student council and WINGS - Wismar International Graduation Services GmbH, a subsidiary of Wismar University of Applied Sciences. The festival was also supported by Sektkellerei Wismar.