How to translate ‘Design’?
Left: Li Hui-jun. Black Light Composition, 1994. Middle: Lin Yin. Computer-Based Composition, 1995. Right: JIMEI Design Group, Guangdong JIMEI Design & Construction Co. Design for the Guangdong Province Reform and Opening Up Exhibition, 1994. Selected Works at the 1995 Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition. Image courtesy of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
Hsiao investigates the formation of design education in the Greater Bay Area from the late 1970s to the 1990s within the context of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts as a manifestation of urban developments during the era of reform and opening-up in China. The research seeks to identify the processes and outcomes of translating design pedagogy and linking it to design practice and urban culture through the institution’s agency. It also traces the dynamics of key exchanges with Hong Kong entities in reframing and applying modern design within both local and regional context, prompted by design and architecture related archives at M+.
Hsiao investigates the formation of design education in the Greater Bay Area from the late 1970s to the 1990s within the context of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts as a manifestation of urban developments during the era of reform and opening-up in China. The research seeks to identify the processes and outcomes of translating design pedagogy and linking it to design practice and urban culture through the institution’s agency. It also traces the dynamics of key exchanges with Hong Kong entities in reframing and applying modern design within both local and regional context, prompted by design and architecture related archives at M+.
- 2023
- Fellow: Leah Hsiao
Leah Hsiao is a historian whose research and writings explore the relationship between the Bauhaus and China, particularly through the dissemination and translation of Bauhaus art and design principles through the work of architects such as Walter Gropius and I. M. Pei. Hsiao’s research has been published in The Architectural Review and West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. She was a research fellow at the Bauhaus Lab: Global Modernism Studies at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in 2016. Hsiao received her PhD in History of Art from the University of York in the UK and is a lecturer at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China.