Design Trust 2023 April Cycle Grant Recipients | July Cycle Call for Grants

Design Trust 2023 July Grant Application is now open. Since its establishment in 2014, Design Trust has been offering grant support to individual designers, curators, collectives as well as non-profit organisations. Share with us your ideas and proposals by 20th July 2023. We are also pleased to announce the Grant Recipients from the 2023 April grant cycle. The upcoming projects include research topics on architecture, urban culture, material innovation and curatorial experimentation in Greater Bay Area and beyond.

Design Trust offers grants to individual designers, curators, collectives and non-profit organisations for projects and activities that are relevant to various design disciplines. These grants support projects relevant to the context and content of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Cities within the Greater Bay Area include: the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, and the nine municipalities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province. We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in various design disciplines from graphics, media, wearables, architecture to the built environment; and actively aim to accelerate creative design and research development of meaningful projects. These projects include but are not limited to: talks, exhibitions, residencies, research projects and creative installations.

DESIGN TRUST SEED GRANT fosters a culture of experimentation, testing and sharing. It is awarded to individuals seeking to kick-start a meaningful and intellectual project with social, educational, economical or environmental impact for communities. Seed Grants may support applicants who have a project in the pipeline that needs additional resources, as well as emerging designers, and young scholars. Design Trust highly encourages applicants from Hong Kong and the region to apply for this grant to support projects showcasing work at international venues, symposium or international biennales to showcase prototypes, or works relevant to architecture.

DESIGN TRUST FEATURE GRANT fosters cross-disciplinary projects focusing on the Greater Bay Area region. Projects awarded have a wide-reaching audience and may be sited in an exhibition or biennale venue with international recognition and standing. This grant supports international exchanges between a Hong Kong/ China based collective with an international renowned cultural institution. It aims to excel, share and build new knowledge and unique positions on the value of design, critical research and provocative outcome.

Grant Recipients from the 2023 April Grant cycle:

“The Care Pavilion” by Naiyi Wang at the London Design Biennale 2023, offers fertile ground for care-fully considering ‘CARE’ through multiple forms, dimensions and perspectives. It is a living collection of attempts to re-imagine the politics and ethics of care by interdisciplinary designers, architects, activists, scholars, healers and cultural practitioners from the Global South and Global North. The team will launch a comprehensive cross-channel promotional communication campaign. The Care Pavilion will serve as a global stage and the presence of their participants will be part of a visual conversation, in addition to a print publication which will be released to accompany the Pavilion. The team will further develop the pavilion to respond to such issues in the context of Greater Bay Area in the coming year.

“Project Oikwan” by Ivan Wong Wei Him, challenges the notion of urban preservation and demonstrates an alternative methodology for the archival of our collective memory using art as the medium. Oi Kwan Barber’s is a 60-year-old shop in an alleyway of Wan Chai being run by the late Master Lau and his son who has inherited his father’s craftsmanship. The team will use this well-preserved space as ground zero, inviting artists to experience and create artwork. Together, they will tell the story of this disappearing culture through exhibitions, artist talks, guided tours, and books. Focusing on the contrast between old and new urban fabric mixture of Hong Kong's cityscape, they aim to reconnect culture with artists and their artworks with the public.

“4 Exchanges On A Hyper Specific Architectural Biotope” by Charlotte Lafont-Hugo, consists of transcription, edition and publication of four discussions between local and internationally recognised actors from the field of architecture and art, deconstructing the specificities of projects they collaborated on in Hong Kong aiming at a more in-depth comprehension of the local architectural biotope. The project aims at communicating the innovative, thought-provoking, contextual applied solutions and strategies of these projects in the hope to push forward an experimental, innovative, open-minded and most importantly problem-solving attitude among all parties involved in the architectural realm.

“Mobile Shredder 3.0” by Ian Hui Ho Cheung, is a human powered machine that shreds plastic waste into flakes which will then be used for plastic upcycling. Gaau1Up confronts the questions of where waste goes after disposal and the concept of “out of sight, out of mind” by creating Mobile Shredder: a machine that is evolved from hand-powered to pedal-powered, and a physical tribute to the knowledge and skills sharing value system. Mobile Shredder 3.0 will be a new generation combined with XYZ-Spaceframe system and explore the possibility of a bikeable mobile shredder.

“Taobao Supply Chain” by Ai Liu, discusses Taobao’s role in the daily lives of Hong Kong residents, and furthers how digitalization shifts build environment and social relationships through the physical and virtual connections. Through the process of tracing the supply chain of a piece of furniture made in Guangdong, bought through Taobao and placed in a Hong Kong home, this project aims to unfold the spatial networks of Taobao supply chain with diagrams, writings and video. Mapping physical spaces, infrastructures and cross-border stakeholders, including the tangible manufacturing and logistics spaces, industry workers and the consumer in Hong Kong as well as intangible processes, will constitute the work produced for this project hoping to explore an increasingly visible relationship.

“Exploring the Drilosphere: The Motion Picture” by Micheal O’Brien, explores a more inspired form of community social practice and artistic mediation that both reflect and respond to the ecological role of earthworm activity while recognizing the importance of the drilosphere to the global ecosystem. The feature film project is about a struggling creative maker who creates works inspired by an ancient earthworm cult, positioning herself against a hyper-consumerist society in her home town of Hong Kong. This work invites the viewer, the artist, the composter and the conscious citizen to reframe and reorient their perspectives on their respective environmental imprint in contemporary society today.