We would also like to congratulate two fellows Emily Verla Bovino and Anouchka van Driel as recipients of the M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship 2021.
“Miniature as Method: Learning from Hong Kong Urban Design in Micro-Scale” by Emily Verla Bovino investigates Hong Kong miniature through exhibition histories, interviews and conversations. Micro-scale models of everyday life are sponsored by companies whose investments facilitate the vanishing of customs and environments that miniatures celebrate. Through case studies and ground research on micro-modellers, miniaturists, enthusiasts and collectors, the project sheds light on Hong Kong miniature as both a design field and a means to study, and encourages more interest in urban design.
“China and the Cosmotechnics of Fashion” by Anouchka van Driel explores the interconnected relationship between fashion as a visual language and social practice. Deploying techno-philosopher Yuk Hui’s concept of ‘Cosmotechnics’ as a lens to frame recent developments in the fashion sector in China, the project aims to explore the changing dynamics between designer and consumer mediated by online platforms and its subsequent impact on design, production and consumption.
The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship programme supports original research projects investigating issues relating to design and architecture in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and Asia through a transnational lens. In addition to expanding the current body of knowledge in these areas, the fellows’ research will inform M+’s collections-building and public programmes.
Researh Fellows engage in advanced research on historical or contemporary topics relating to either a single discipline (such as architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and urbanism) or cross-disciplinary developments, taking into consideration the region’s cultural, social, economic, and political milieux as well as its international and cross-cultural networks. The successful applicants will be attached to M+ for three to six months in 2021, conducting independent research, encouraged to engage with the museum’s curatorial staff and participate in M+ programmes. The fellowship results in 1) a paper (5,000 words or more) to be disseminated digitally or in print by M+ and Design Trust, or an equivalent outcome in an alternative format; and 2) a lecture as part of the museum’s public programmes.
The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship programme is now in its 7th year, and past and current fellows include: Ling Fan (2015); Joseph Grima and the team of Daniel Cooper and Juliana Kei (2016); Thomas Daniell (2017); and Hugh Davies and the team of Fan Lok Yi and Sampson Wong (2018); Oliver Elser and Yasmin Tri Aryani (2019); Jason Lau and the team of Farzin Lotfi-Jam and Mark Wasiuta (2020).
Stay tuned for more details and official announcement here