Design Trust is pleased to officially launch Design Trust Futures Studio Greater Bay Area programme themed “Nature is Nurture is Nature” responding to the question “What is the future of Greater Bay Area?”. Curated by Marisa Yiu (Lead Curator/ Executive Director) with Zheng Zhou (Head of Programmes/ Associate Curator), the three-year regional mentorship programmes will craft a visionary explorative creative atlas for the Greater Bay Area Region within an international context, encompassing creative mapping and physical-digital representation examining cross-cultural production, cultural alternatives in relation to agricultural practice, industrial production of objects and trade flows around the Southern China region including Hong Kong. The first stage will focus on Guangzhou with other cities including Shenzhen, Foshan, Macau in Greater Bay Area and its interconnections to the region.
Launch of Design Trust Futures Studio Greater Bay Area Programme themed “Nature is Nurture is Nature”
27. 9. 2024
On the occasion of 10th anniversary of Design Trust, Marisa Yiu (Co-Founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director) announced the programme launch and curatorial theme at Design Trust Decade Talks on September 14th 2024 in Tai Kwun, Hong Kong with the Inaugural Design Trialogues Keynote Speaker, former Design Trust Feature Grant recipient and Pritzker Architecture Prize recipient Rem Koolhaas and his world-renowned 1996 Project on the City team from Harvard GSD and their seminal publication on the Pearl River Delta region. The synergies between Design Trust Futures Studio and Project on the City will further inform the active cultural and design research on the past, present and future of region from Pearl River Delta to Greater Bay Area.
Marisa Yiu (Co-Founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director) said “The spirit of Design Trust Futures Studio has always been to nurture minds but also question the context and challenges of how we make, craft make decisions and develop careers or ideas whether it is economic or social, and have a deeper understanding of the environmental and civic responsibilities of exploring our heritage to make new possibilities. We will look at where we are from, to how we can participate in the cultural transformation of the Greater Bay Area and naturally “nurture” and foster questions how we as people shape the city or the city shapes us, and how we can build bridges of collaborations and soft infrastructures to bring people together and pool resources to activate new creativities and positive values of design and research of design, cultural programming to advance our society’s learning and inspiration from the Greater Bay Area.”
Design Trust Futures Studio (DTFS) is a long-term flagship programme that makes visible the processes and positive role of design in the culture of contemporary design and production. The programme stems from a project-studio concept that promotes life-long collaborations through a mentor-mentee programme. DTFS is a cross-disciplinary initiative created and conceptualised by Marisa Yiu (Co-Founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director of Design Trust). Experts from different fields will contribute to the mentor-mentee teams in the exploration of materials, production, and put forth the positive value of design of public spaces in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and internationally. In 2017 we examined the theme of smallness in Hong Kong and how it can be harnessed to create meaningful change with the theme “Small is Meaningful”. The 2018 edition continued this momentum with a new theme “Play is for The People” in designing and creating new micro-park designs for Hong Kong. In 2019, the theme and concept is focused on “Heritage is Innovation”, exploring the animated definitions of Hong Kong identity, shaping conversations on "conservation", and finding new ways to open up heritage sites to build new narratives of the role and place of heritage – not as a static subject but a dynamic living and inspiring process. In collaboration and partnership with Project Twelve and Hong Kong Palace Museum, the 2022 edition “Heritage is Creative Generation” looked into how the act of collaboration and experimentation can creatively passed on to future generations, to generate and inform new material techniques whilst respecting tradition of Zodiac objects. The upcoming Design Trust Futures Studio Greater Bay Area “Nature is Nurture is Nature” will involve a survey of eleven cities of the region through a mentor-mentee think-tank programme that examine cross-cultural networks. Stay tuned for the latest updates on the programme.