Design Trust Call for Grants: July 2020 cycle

Design Trust 2020 July Grant Application is now open. Share with us your ideas and proposals by 20 July 2020. Design Trust offers grants to designers, curators, collectives and non-profit organisations for project proposals that are relevant to the context and content of Hong Kong and the region. We are also pleased to launch our new online application platform available from 16 July 2020. Grant recipients from the April 2020 cycle include Yip Kai Chun (Hong Kong), Liz Lau and her team at Hong Kong Dragon Kiln Concern Group (Hong Kong), Zheng Qiu and his team at DEMO Studio (Beijing), Maggie Chan Tsz Wai and her team at Ground Rule Studio (Hong Kong), Florian Wegenast and Christine Lew from Studio Florian and Christine  (London/Hong Kong), Enrique Moya-Angeler (Hong Kong), Nicole Andrianjaka de Surville and her team at Zolima CityMag(Hong Kong), Toby Lam (Hong Kong), and Bob Pang (Hong Kong).

2020 April Cycle Feature Grant Recipients: Yip Kai-chun’s “Inter-island Festival” is a Setouchi-style art and lifestyle festival dedicated to Hong Kong’s outer islands and its inter-island ferry service. Planned for October 2020, the Festival will be held across Peng Chau, Cheung Chau, Lantau Island’s Mui Wo and Chi Ma Wan, with a variety of activities that relate to urban/rural cultures, environmental conservation, as well as design and crafts. The Festival aims to shed light on the often forgotten yet distinct differences between the islands from the points of view of the environment, communities and history, in addition to promoting and protecting their shared cultures and raise awareness towards the often overlooked richness of Hong Kong island life. The project also hopes to foster connections and exchange between these outposts and the city through an  accessible and playful perspective into insular life.

Liz Lau and her team at Hong Kong Dragon Kiln Concern Group plan to revitalise the only surviving dragon kiln in Hong Kong. The organisation’s mission is to preserve and revitalise the Castle Peak Pottery Kiln Tuen Mun, the city’s only surviving and complete structure of its kind. The Hong Kong Dragon Kiln was constructed in the 1940s and was in operation until the 1980s. Through years of extensive research, documentation, education, public engagement and direct advocacy with various stakeholders in the public, Liz and her team has come to identify the cultural significance and a clear vision for the future utilisation of the Kiln. These include archival research and conducting interviews with individuals involved in its production. Through studying this once popular pottery producer in the community, the project also provides a unique insight into ethnographic stories, and its artistic and cultural values during Hong Kong’s rapid development. Liz’s aim is to ultimately develop The Kiln into a museum complex that serves to rekindle its heritage with the public. Rather than keeping it as a static historical structure, the museum will be a “living” space that offers ceramic experiences and education through workshops.

Liz Lau’s project aims to revitalise the only surviving dragon kiln in Hong Kong, the Castle Peak Pottery Kiln (Images Courtesy of Liz Lau)

2020 April Cycle Seed Grant Recipients: Zheng Qiu and his team at DEMO Studio aims to provide solution references for traditional small household appliance-manufacturing businesses in Beijiao, Foshan through product and brand transformation. Focusing on how industrial design and a design-driven process can be effective approaches to helping the local manufacturing industry of small household electrical appliances.  Zheng Qiu’s project will dive into the challenges and opportunities for these local enterprises, studying their potentials and proposing revised and referential proposals that allow the design industry, manufacturers and suppliers in the Greater Bay Area to work collaboratively and efficiently.

Maggie Chan Tsz Wai and her team at Ground Rule Studio’s came up with the Waste Made Wonderful project, an environmental initiative that addresses Hong Kong's landfill problem and looks to fill the gap in the market that lacks readily available eco-conscious raw materials. The initiative is launched to create broader awareness of eco-conscious material substitutes for use for a range of creative industries, and bring attention to the different waste streams created in Hong Kong’s daily lives and the detrimental impact it leaves. Through collaborative exchanges, exhibits and workshops to the general public, this initiative will encourage designers to become more eco-conscious in their material choices and inform the public of their consumer choices, while actively seeking new environmentally-friendly substitutes for product creations.

Studio Florian and Christine’s Tactile Light Textile is a series of smart textiles that explores the preservation of traditional craft, specifically Chinese embroidery, whilst infusing innovative technologies, like LEDs, sensors and 3D knitting, that results in a questioning of the value of traditional craft in modern technology and design. The creation involves collaborating with Hong Kong embroiderers and textile artisans, while the modern aspect involves working with LED lighting, wiring systems and motion sensors. The duo has been actively learning about Hong Kong’s heritage craft for the past two years, and the intention to create such “hybrid crafts”--the fusion of technology with traditional crafts, prompts an understanding of how age-old skills can be preserved for the future, and its potential to be realised in a different form. Exploring the future of lighting, Florian and Christine focuses on how heritage craft can play an active role, working alongside craftsmen and the creative network in Hong Kong.

Enrique Moya-Angeler and Lee Man Pan, CP’s project, named “Mr. Tschumi, have you seen follies in Hong Kong? A physical archive of the ventilation shafts of the MTR infrastructure”, aims to reveal and document the ventilation shafts of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR), the project also aims to extend its reach to Shenzhen railway system (Line 1). Inspired by the ventilation structure that sits in front of the Western Market, Enrique’s study seeks to give visibility, educate, and build a valuable virtual archive of these structures that he sees as physical and architectural milestones besides their principal purpose as ventilators. The research process will involve a physical survey to determine the tectonic, structure, construction materials, dimensions, colours, and physical situation of these ventilator shafts. The final objective of this project is to document, catalogue and map, culminating in a model-base exhibition. The name of the project alludes to the Villette Park in Paris, which was designed by Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi in the 80s. Drawing parallels between its iconic follies, which serves as direction references, and MTR ventilation shafts, it prompts questions on the architectural or heritage value of such structures in an urban landscape.

Inspired by this protruding structure that sits in front of Central’s Western Market, Enrique Moya-Angeler and Lee Man Pan, CP’s project seeks to archive and study the architectural value of ventilation shafts of Hong Kong’s MTR (Images courtesy of Enrique Moya-Angeler and Lee Man Pan, CP)

Nicole Andrianjaka de Surville and her team at Zolima CityMag’s “After” is a purposeful initiative rooted in journalism that brings together young writers, videographers and photographers to explore the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on Hong Kong’s life and culture. The pandemic has exposed the injustices and inequalities of our society,  but also the solidarity, collective ingenuity and hope for change. The written works, photos and videos in this project address the challenges and opportunities created by the pandemic, raising questions about the way things are in Hong Kong and how they will be in the future. Exploring these changes through creative projects, the series of work will be exhibited both online and in a physical setting at the start of 2021, which will coincide with the first anniversary of the first Covid19 case in HK. The work will also be showcased on Zolima CityMag to enable the project to reach a wider audience.

“After” seeks to bring together young journalists and photographers to explore and document the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on Hong Kong’s life and culture (Images Courtesy of Zolima CityMag)

Toby Lam’s Slow Stitch Festival advocates for the slowing down of clothing production, and putting more emphasis on educating the public on the art of clothes making. It aims to preserve and popularise basic sewing skills through the online to offline tutorials and cultivate the habit of re-fashioning for future wearables. The project hopes to provide a viable, sustainable alternative to the increasingly indistinguishable options of the high street.  The project proposed the inclusion of refashioning workshops and repair services, interactive art activities, talks and an exhibition, to encourage the re-evaluation of the clothes we own in a sustainable and sensible way.

Bob Pang’s photography project that aims to map out and reveals the history and aesthetic of Brutalist architecture in Hong Kong scored a Seed Grant this cycle.  The proposed project will start off with an urban research and photo survey throughout the city, to reveal hidden examples of existing local brutalist architecture. Drawings from the Building Department will also be used to trace the architects and history of these structures. A further study will be carried out to categorise the architecture by its design languages, characters and typologies, finally represented in graphical illustrations, and showcased in a photo exhibition. The project aims at provoking discussions among local architecture practitioners and the general public on a broader discussion of the city’s architecture history and its hidden aesthetic.