Design Trust Grant Recipient | Publication “Care Manifesto” and Exhibition “Matters of Care” at the inaugural Guangzhou Design Triennial 2024

2. 7. 2024

Spaces for Wellbeing, Alissa + Nienke, courtesy of Guangdong Museum of Art.
Sea Chair. No. 002, A.A.Murakami, courtesy of Guangdong Museum of Art.

Design Trust Feature Grant exhibition “Matters of Care” curated by Naiyi Wang at the inaugural Guangzhou Design Triennial at Guangdong Museum of Art was held from January 17th to May 31st 2024 at Guangdong Museum of Art. The thematic exhibition invites cross-disciplinary creatives from around the world including Alissa + Nienke, A.A.Murakami,  MOS Architects, Studio Ossidiana and many more to respond to notions of care, seeking to explore care through many ways of knowing and being. As a new platform extended from Guangzhou Triennial since 2002, the inaugural Guangzhou Design Triennial 2024 is themed “The Warm-beings” with the curatorial team of chief curator Wang Shaoqiang along with co-curators Vicky Richardson, Li Degeng, Design Trust Futures Studio Mentor Stanley Wong, and Design Trust grantee Naiyi Wang. The inaugural triennial has become the last exhibition at the current Guangdong Museum of Art before it fully relocates to the new site at Baiétan Greater Bay Art Center in Liwan District of Guangzhou.

Dr. Jana Scholze’s sharing at the panel talk “Contemporary Design Ethics and Design Curation”, courtesy of Guangdong Museum of Art.
The panel talk “Contemporary Design Ethics and Design Curation”, courtesy of Guangdong Museum of Art.

The exhibition also further extended the discussion to various engagement activities including panel talk and guided tour. Moderated by Naiyi Wang and Tingting Li, the panel talk “Contemporary Design Ethics and Design Curation” on April 13th 2024  invited researcher Li Zhang to share her practice on how ethical design could engage the public in the technology advancement and social governance, followed by Dr. Jana Scholze who discussed the intricate relationship and appropriation between film as a medium and design as an act. Responding to the theme “Matters of Care”, the discussion sheds light on how design research and exploration offers new perspectives to extend the definition of care across human and nonhuman processes including economies, ecologies and planetary systems while addressing the urgency of care in the contemporary design practice.

Excerpts from “Care Manifesto” publication, courtesy of Naiyi Wang.

Built upon her earlier show “Care Pavilion” at London Design Biennale 2023, Naiyi Wang also recently published the book “Care Manifesto”, inviting 50 contributors from around the world to respond to “care” with a declaration of “I care by…”, reflecting on the entanglement of care with their creative practices, as well as how they care in precarious times. From the exhibitions to the publication, the ongoing research and exploration of “care” led by Naiyi continues to reflect on collective-care initiatives and “care-full” practice where care has been  re-imagined and re-collectivised through an intersectional perspective. At a critical time when the world is facing challenges from multiple angles, the project seeks to foster a diversity of responses and experiences across disciplines to make care visible and accessible to a wider community.