Coming to its third edition, Beijing Design Week (BJDW) 2013 will once again play host to a unique, city-wide showcase of initiatives celebrating creativity and innovation from the design field at large, with a multifaceted program of events, forums, exhibitions, site-specific projects, and talk shops innervating the city across different spatial and social contexts. Under the new creative direction of Beijing-based curator Beatrice Leanza, the overall program of BJDW 2013 looks at creating a meaningful narrative across its various outlets as to render key investigative domains that moderate contemporary design discourse and practice within specific urban zones, so to augment and make resonant their contextual integration within Beijing’s unique scenario.

The renewed partnership between BJDW and UCCA—two of Beijing’s leading institutions fostering cutting-edge conversations around contemporaneity in the arts and humanities—reinforces the importance of furthering theoretical and practice-based dialogue among disciplines and among the growing global audiences of the capital. The Design HOP@ UCCA program features a unique roster of projects, including a special talk series in collaboration with international and local institutions and media that brings together world-renowned experts and practitioners; two brand new exhibitions presented by Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA); and the Chinese preview of The International Space Orchestra, a movie by designer Nelly Ben Hayoun.

The special talk series, with presentations by designers and panel discussions, is organized into three main subsections across the Design HOP areas, namely Dashilar Alley (in the Dashilar historical district), 751 Intl Design Festival (in 751 Industrial Park adjacent to 798 Art District) and CCD – The Community (in Caochangdi Art Village).

Each thematic discussion brings together key protagonists from the local and international design and art fields with relevance to initiatives presented throughout BJDW main locations for a more narrative exploration of debated issues around the ‘doings’ of design – ranging from product to contemporary craft, architecture, urban planning, new digital technologies, and manufacturing. They aggregate far-reaching perspectives from industry and academia at the forefront of their fields of practice and research.

Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts will present a two-part exhibition in the Pavilion of UCCA. “Bamboo Whisper” introduces the works of eight young designers from different parts of China as they look for a fusion between contemporary language and craft techniques with the most traditional of materials. “LIANG Design,” a title subtending to the different meanings associated with the phoneme, including ‘brightness,’ ‘doubleness,’ and ‘beauty,’ showcases new pieces resulting from the experimental encounter between ten established local designers and furniture brands.

Furthermore, a special screening and China preview of the movie The International Space Orchestra by designer Nelly Ben Hayoun provides a singular cinematic rendering for a performative and event-based practice, expanding the outreach of design beyond mere materiality towards spatial and experiential territories that blend arts and music.

Time: 9.22 (SUN) 13:30-15:30

Topic: Eastern Studies Move West: The Rise of New Orientalism

Speaker：Tim Yip

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Dashilar Alley - DSL

Time: 9.24 (TUE) 13:30-15:30

Topic: Hutong Anatomy: Preservation, Friend or Foe?

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Speakers: Hua Xinmin, Zhang Jinqi, Wang Youyin

Time: 9.25 (WED) 10:30-12:30

Topic: In Conversation with Designboom Magazine (Part 1)

Speaker: Zhang Ke

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.26 (THU) 10:30-12:30

Topic: Wallpaper* Remade in China

Moderator: Richard Cook

Speakers: Rossana Hu, Michael Young, Thomas Lykke, Harrison Liu, Ole Scheeren

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.29 (SUN) 10:30-12:30

Topic: In Conversation with Designboom Magazine (Part 2)

Moderator: Birgit Lohmann

Speakers: Matali Crasset, Michael Young, Neville Mars, Luca Nichetto

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 10.02 (WED) 13:30-15:30

Topic: The Dashilar VI Project: A Conversation Between Kenya Hara and Liang Jingyu

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

751 Intl’ Design Festival

Time: 9.27(FRI) 13:30-15:30

Topic: DADA “Digital Infiltration” Series: Digital Design and Public Life

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.28 (SAT) 13:30-16:30

Topic: Picture Books × Architecture

Keynote Speaker: Yung Ho Chang

Speakers: Shu Kewen, Lei Lei

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.29 (SUN) 13:00-15:00

Topic: Grazing Horses: The Story Behind the Sketches

Speaker: Qingyun Ma

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.29 (SUN) 16:00-18:00

Topic: The Henn China Academy

Keynote Speakers: Gunter Henn, Sun Wei

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

CCD – The Community

Time: 9.24 (TUE) 10:30-12:30

Topic: Appropriate, Mutate, Innovate: Environmentally Conscious Contemporary Lifestyles

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Time: 9.24 (TUE) 18:30-20:30

Topic: CCD – The Community: The CCD Pavilion

Speakers: Liu Wei, Chen Dili

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Screening

Time: 9.27 (FRI ) 16:00-17:30

Name: The International Space Orchestra Movie Screening and Reception with Director Nelly Ben Hayoun

Venue: UCCA Auditorium

Dashilar (Dashilar Alley - DSL)

Dashilar is central to this year’s program and to the long-term planning launched by BJDW in collaboration with local authorities and a growing number of creative professionals taking the historical area of Dashilar (DSL) as their home. These talks, organized in collaboration with Abitare China, Design Boom, and Wallpaper* magazines, will address the criticalities of micro-scale planning with the aim of contextualizing discussion around ‘design heritage’ and preservation, spanning from the built-environment to intangible cultural traditions. Taken as a springboard for site-specific projects, contemporary crafts showcases, historical exhibitions, and urban and architectural proposals responsive to its unique vernacular dimension, the program in DSL also unveils permanent renovation projects realized by local and international architects, collating the latent dynamics at work between historical development and creative appropriation. The series includes a special presentation by Muji Art Director Kenya Hara, the creator of Dashilar’s new VI system (map and digital applications).

751 D.Park (751 Intl’ Design Festival)

With an exciting new set of large scale, site-responsive projects addressing design as semantics of experience and place-making, the program in 751 D.Park focuses on architectural experimentation, urban planning, and its connections with digital culture and interactivity. This series gives stage to China’s leading universities and research centers and some of the most iconic figures in global architecture from China and abroad. Forums organized by Tsinghua University and the Henn China Academy feature the most thought-provoking architects, experiences, and projects in connection to the ground-breaking exhibition “Digital Infiltration” presented by DADA (Digital Architecture Design Association) at 751 Water Tank. The newly established Tongji University Press will present an exhibition of their brand new series “Luminous City,” which engages two of China’s most acclaimed architects, Yung Ho Chang and Qingyun Ma, in conversation.

Caochangdi Art Village (CCD - The Community)

The notorious artistic village on the city outskirts, home to a heterogeneous cluster of studios, renowned galleries, and ‘urban’ residents, continues to be a hotbed for experimental, innovation-driven research in design-making and thinking by locally based creators probing the intersection of art, design, and new technologies. With live performances, rapid prototyping sessions, and workshops unfolding over two weeks, the talks in this section unveil the experiences of Beijing-based designers and artists, including internationally renowned Liu Wei and Yan Lei on their projects for the brand new CCD pavilion, as well as roundtable discussion about up-cycling, new methods of fabrication, and recycling of commonly used and discarded materials related to the AMI (Appropriate, Mutate, Innovate) project on show in the Red Bricks complex.

Chinese preview of designer Nelly Ben Hayoun’s The International Space Orchestra (66 min.)

Join the International Space Orchestra–an assembly of star-spangled space scientists from NASA Ames and SETI Institute, Singularity University, and the International Space University—in the adventure of performing a unique drama of non-terrestrial communication and the techno-wonders of mission control rooms. Space Scientists of NASA Ames Research Center and SETI Institute believe that understanding the crucial and elemental necessity of embracing both music and science will enable us to endure and thrive on our journey into space. The film’s surrealism merges science, technology, design, and opera, capturing all the behind-the-scenes action during the creation of the International Space Orchestra.

Directed by Nelly Ben Hayoun, featuring original music by Arthur Jeffes of Penguin Café; music written by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn with singer Bobby Womack and producer Richard Russell; and Japanese superstar and Otamatone inventor, Maywa Denki.

Lyrics by science fiction author Bruce Sterling and writer Jasmina Tesanovic.

Musical director: Two-time Grammy award winner Evan Price.

About the director:

Nelly Ben Hayoun has been called the “Willy Wonka of design and science,” and she is on a mission to bring chaos, subversion, and disorder into the worlds of design and science. She has exhibited, spoken, and performed worldwide in prestigious venues, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Design Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa, and the first Beijing International Design Triennial, National Museum of China. An award-winning director and experienced designer from France, she graduated from the Design Interactions masters program of the Royal College of Art. In her practice, she works with leading scientists and engineers to devise subversive events and performances. Ben Hayoun is a visiting professor at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and a researcher in human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, writing on social power structure in scientifically built environments (Mission Control). She is the Designer of Experiences at SETI Institute, California, USA.

First launched as a pilot effort in 2009, Beijing Design Week was re-launched in 2011 as an annual event to involve the international community and promote the local design industry. A city-wide showcase of initiatives celebrating creativity and innovation from the design field at large, BJDW is ongoing observatory acting both as an infrastructural provider and as a cultural connective system of nation-wide and international outreach. BJDW fosters the development of the local design environment while making itself referent for an international community of makers and thinkers as a catalyst of ideas, forward-looking solutions, and academic explorations originating from, challenged by, and inspired by the contemporary predicament of global China.

Awarded the title of “City of Design” by UNESCO in 2012, Beijing Design Week is an initiative supported by Beijing Municipality, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Science and Technology.

www.bjdw.org