Design Trust Grant Spotlight

Design Trust is pleased to share a selection of highlighted grant projects in the winter, including Niko Leung and Loky Leung’s “Hong Kong Soil” exhibition at UABB Hong Kong 2022, ‘0 x anything = 0 ?” by Gaybird Leung showcased at Hong Kong Arts Centre, ‘Dust–Free-Chambers’ by Adam Hudec at Oil Street Art Space, as well as the exhibition "Nail Salon – Spatial Implications of Women’s Labour” by Chiara Oggioni and Yi Sun currently on-show at PMQ Hong Kong.

Design Trust Feature Grant ‘Hong Kong Soil’ by Niko Leung and Loky Leung

Displayed at 2022 UABB Hong Kong from August to November 2022, the exhibit “Infinite Use of a Finite Thing” is a band of earth rammed to seat height, intended to be served as a bench for dialogue and imagination. The rammed earth bench is coupled with the formwork. Within it, earth mixture is set loose to exhibit the raw material used, and to suggest a continuation of the ramming process. Hong Kong Soil is an initiative to recycle discarded soil into resourceful material for building and product design. To build with earth is an active response to the continuous deterioration of our city- and landscape, yet it is not commonly seen in Hong Kong. The project’s experimentation explores the cultural, technical opportunities in recycling discarded soil from construction sites.

Design Trust Seed Grant ‘0 x anything = 0 ?’ by Gaybird Leung

The exhibition ‘0 x anything = 0 ?’ was presented at Hong Kong Arts Centre in October 2022. By placing a question mark at the end of the equation as the exhibition title, the exhibition attempts to respond to certainties in our contemporary life and express doubts on whether common sense is still common. In the video installation “Sound of all Colours”, Gaybird explored white noise, which combined all sounds at different frequencies. Each unit repeats like a musical instrument and a living creature. Even though the sound runs at high pressure, audiences can still draw their own rhythm through their sight.

Design Trust Seed Grant recipient Adam Hudec’s ‘Dust –Free- Chambers’

Based on the previous Seed Grant research Dust Chamber, Adam developed the Dusts -free-Chambers for “ON AIR” at Oil Street Art Space in November 2022, proposing new ways of being in the world by providing an experience that is foreign to our senses: air without any dusts, mites, microbes, or human-made deposits. This pop-up interactive installation offers the experience of breathing in a pollution-free environment; a condition once taken for granted, nowadays is a pure utopia. As part of “ON AIR”, Adam also shared his journey as an artist with a multidisciplinary background in exploring the senses and fostering awareness about air and the way we breathe with innovative design thinking in conversation with Design Trust Feature Grant grantee Yip Kai Chun during the exhibition period.

Design Trust Seed Grant “Nail Salon – Spatial Implications of Women’s Labour” by Chiara Oggioni and Yi Sun

The exhibition Nail Salon – Spatial Implications of Women’s Labour led by Chiara Oggioni and Yi Sun is currently on display at PMQ Hong Kong until 5 January 2022. “Nail Salon” explores the spatial implications of women’s labour in Hong Kong to reflect on the post-industrial society. The salon’s spatial definition is blurred by the activities carried out with socio-cultural implications between interconnected realities. The exhibition opens up possibilities to think about it through the connections those women have through the economies of their working conditions, the network of communities supporting them, the families they take care of, ultimately expressing humanity across different scales.

Exhibition details

Date: 12 December 2022 (Monday) – 5 January 2022 (Thursday)

Time: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Venue: S314, 3/F, Block A (Staunton), PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong