Design Trust is excited to announce that from the 7th-9th of July we are partnering with Chief Curator and Executive Director Eva Franch and Associate Curator Carlos Mínguez Carrasco of the New York-based Storefront for Art and Architecture, bringing the first ever Storefront International Series to Asia and Hong Kong. As part of the Storefront International Series: Hong Kong (Storefront IS Hong Kong), a public ideas review for Design Trust Futures Studio, our new flagship programme conceptualized by Co-founder and Executive Director Marisa Yiu, will also be held on 8th July.
Storefront International Series: Hong Kong (Storefront IS Hong Kong) is a three-day series of events that take place in contested sites across the city of Hong Kong. Events seek to address the nature of urban public life, and to highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by Hong Kong residents. Local and global agents from various fields present and discuss their ideas and observations about various places within the city, bringing to the forefront a larger conversation about the cultural and physical landscapes of the region. Storefront IS Hong Kong aims to go beyond social, disciplinary, and ideological boundaries, breaking established lines of division to produce spaces of collective thought, reflection, and ultimately, action.
There will be live-streaming and public events throughout the city from the 7th-9th July, so join us to celebrate innovative art, architecture, and design that transcends geographic, ideological, and disciplinary boundaries.
For more details, visit here.
FRIDAY, 7 JULY 2017
Reading Images: Transborder Territories
Date: Friday, 7th July 2017
Time: 11:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Ferry from Hong Kong to Shekou
Meeting point and time: East Bridge, 3/F, Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal at 10:45am
Attendance: Open to the public*
Strategically located in the Pearl River Delta region of southern China, Hong Kong, officially an “autonomous territory,” serves as the gateway to modern China. The border between Hong Kong and mainland China is crossed every day by thousands of people who work or study on the other side. The infrastructure of the daily commute and the service economy has developed into a third space, inhabited by migrant bodies and defined by financial and cultural exchange protocols. This transnational community represents a rich and diverse engine for the economic and cultural growth of the region. The Hong Kong-Shenzhen border will be the site for a critical discussion around questions of migration and exchange, learning from local conditions and reflecting upon geopolitical borders on a global scale.
The Reading Images Series invites participants to closely look into images and construct arguments, narratives, and observations that produce incisive readings about form, politics, gaze, and representation.
Participants: Ethel Baraona, Ole Bouman, Jason Hilgefort, Cole Roskam, Shirley Surya, Paul Tse, Evelyn Ting
Moderators: Eva Franch, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Marisa Yiu
Image contributors: Merve Bedir, Venus Lau, MAP Office, Stanley Wong
*Please note: members of public must buy their own ferry tickets (event will take place in the upper deck) and arrange a Shenzhen visa independently. The ferry from Hong Kong to Shekou departs at 11:30 am. Please be reminded that all participants will have to depart the ferry on arrival at Shekou and independently arrange further transportation back to Hong Kong, via the ferry (1:10pm / 2:15pm / 3:35pm) or alternative border crossing.
Paella/Wok Series: Sharing
Date: Friday, 7th July 2017
Time: 7:00pm - 10pm
Location: Private space in Chai Wan
Attendance: By invitation only
The concept of the contemporary sharing movement, increasingly ubiquitous, is influencing the exchange of goods, data, images, services, and spaces of residence and work globally. Hong Kong’s scale, growth, and political situation have favored various forms of sharing experiments. Peer-to-peer local technologies, the architectures of informal rooftop communities, and the urbanisms originated from the so-called “umbrella revolution” serve as points of departure for a discussion around the potential of the culture of sharing. This series will explore the spatial, social, public, and private consequences of the sharing movement for the construction of more aspirational forms of public life.
This event is kindly hosted by Mina Park. Food will be prepared by Eva Franch, Alan Lo, and Mina Park.
The Paella Series is a format that aims to produce intense conversations on delicate subjects through a space of intimacy and quotidian action, in this case cooking and eating. Held in a state of floating attention and distracted thoughts, conversations between a select group of guests are private but recorded and archived for possible public access.
Participants: Ethel Baraona, Merve Bedir, Rony Chan, Janice Leung Hayes, Jason Hilgefort, Sylvia Lavin, Michael Leung, Alan Lo, Lionello Lunesu, Mina Park, Michelle Poon, Markus Wernli, Ada Wong
Moderators: Eva Franch, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Marisa Yiu
SATURDAY, 8 JULY 2017
Definition Series: Smallness (Design Trust Futures Studio Public Review Session 1)
Date: Saturday, 8th July 2017
Time: 10:00am - 12:30pm
Location: Spring Workshop, 3/F, Remex Centre (enter on Heung Yip Rd), 42 Wong Chuk Hang Rd, Aberdeen
Venue Partner: Spring Workshop
Attendance: Open to the public (RSVP required: https://goo.gl/forms/BR6ozkEX24MMFqYH3)
“In mid-2014, the population of Hong Kong was 7.24 million, including 7.03 million Usual Residents and 0.22 million Mobile Residents. During the period 2010 to 2014, the population grew at an average annual rate of 0.8%.” Hong Kong’s limited physical territory and its population growth have increased the development of spaces for micro-living, augmenting the already high density of the city. Definition Series: Smallness, part of the Design Trust Futures Studio Public Review, examines how “smallness,” also understood as a form of agility in the face of seemingly fixed structures, can be operative in architecture. Addressing both public and private spaces, participants will present a definition of the notion of “smallness” and its impact upon the development of the city of Hong Kong.
Design Trust Futures Studio is a new cross-disciplinary initiative. Experts in design will focus on future-oriented thinking with outcomes that are impactful to society or public space in Hong Kong and the Greater Pearl River Delta Region. With an inaugural theme of “SMALL IS MEANINGFUL,” the exploration and research of the Design Trust Futures Studio will initiate with an examination of housing and parks in Hong Kong, and will address how space is utilised, subsequently developing a series of new prototypes of micro-parks for Hong Kong.
Definition Series: Smallness is hosted in partnership with Spring Workshop.
The Definition Series invites participants to produce their own definitions of a given term, constructing a multifaceted edifice around particular words and their contemporary usage in specific fields, contexts, and practices.
Moderator and Lead Curator: Marisa Yiu
Moderator: Eva Franch
Mentors: Gary Chang, Stanley Wong, Elizabeth Diller, Mimi Hoang, Sam Jacob
(Hong Kong-based mentors will be present at the Ideas Review)
Designer Mentees: Sylvia Chan, Zoey Chan, Jose Fu, Cesar Harada, Stephen Ip, DickWai Lai, Ricky Lai, Vivian Ng, Xavier Tsang, Samuel Wong, Wendy Wu, Ffion Zhang
Guest Participants: James Acuna, Ethel Baraona, Arnault Castel, James Chambers, Donald Choi, Patrick Hwang, Tat Lam, William Lane, Lesley Lau, Leslie Lu, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Duncan Pescod, Suhanya Raffel, Cole Roskam, Eric Schuldenfrei, Ada Wong, Sara Wong, Eric Yim
Manifesto Series: Scale (Design Trust Futures Studio Public Review Session 2)
Date: Saturday, 8th July 2017
Time: 2:30pm - 5:30pm
Location: Spring Workshop, 3/F, Remex Centre (enter on Heung Yip Rd), 42 Wong Chuk Hang Rd, Aberdeen
Venue Partner: Spring Workshop
Attendance: Open to the public (RSVP required: https://goo.gl/forms/BR6ozkEX24MMFqYH3)
The notion of scale allows us to understand relationships between space and context; born out of historical precedents and conventions of knowledge production, scale is a shifting cultural construct. Discussions about scale during the end of the last century in Europe focused on reevaluating scale in accordance with emerging infrastructural spaces and typologies. With homogeneous city models appearing worldwide, ideas of scale have been disseminated as yet another force of globalization. What scalar conditions are endemic to the contemporary reality of global metropoli in Southeast Asia and elsewhere? What can be understood from this context in Hong Kong? Manifesto Series: Scale presents seven-minute manifestos by a group of participants who will each take a position on scale in Hong Kong.
Manifesto Series: Scale is hosted in partnership with Spring Workshop.
The Manifesto Series invites participants to denounce a present or past condition; proclaim an alternative present, past, or future situation; and indicate a strategy or method of action.
Moderator and Lead Curator: Marisa Yiu
Moderator: Eva Franch
Mentors: Gary Chang, Stanley Wong, Elizabeth Diller, Mimi Hoang, Sam Jacob
(Hong Kong-based mentors will be present at the Ideas Review)
Designer Mentees: Sylvia Chan, Zoey Chan, Jose Fu, Cesar Harada, Stephen Ip, DickWai Lai, Ricky Lai, Vivian Ng, Xavier Tsang, Samuel Wong, Wendy Wu, Ffion Zhang
Guest Participants: James Acuna, Ethel Baraona, Arnault Castel, Donald Choi, Tat Lam, William Lane, Lesley Lau, Leslie Lu, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Suhanya Raffel, Cole Roskam, Eric Schuldenfrei, Sara Wong, Eric Yim
SUNDAY, 9 JULY 2017
Walking Series: Legibility
Date: 9thJuly 2017
Time: 9:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Sai Ying Pun, Sheung Wan, Wanchai, North Point
Meeting Point and Time: Inside King George V Park, Sai Ying Pun (Entrance on Eastern Street, close to the corner of High Street) at 8:45am *
Attendance: Open to the public (RSVP recommended via Facebook)
The collective imaginary of a city is made up of recognizable icons, signs, symbols, ratios, chromatic palettes, smells, acoustic signatures, and other multiple modalities of perception. Moving through Hong Kong, from its continuous interior walkways to its sidewalks and onto the upper platforms of the city’s tram infrastructure, one perceives a city from particular types of vantage points. These perspectives, or geographies of perception, constitute an identitary signature of Hong Kong’s urban imaginary. Moreover, we now navigate the city with the aid of digital technologies that guide us each time through a different optimized experience. Our ability to read the city has shifted; neon signs are being substituted by pop-up ads, for example. In a time where the urban and the digital are colliding, how should we read the city?
What forms of experiencing the built environment are obsolete, and which are emerging? Walking Series: Legibility is a series of city tours led by local and international experts that will each render visible and legible a particular layer of the urban fabric and public life.
The Walking Series is an event that invites individuals both familiar with and foreign to a particular territory to lead a walking exercise through its streets or paths. Borrowing from examples of guided tours, the Walking Series unveils latent realities through a real-time experience of navigation and transit.
Participants: Adonian Chan, Maggie Lin, Brian Kwok, Kevin Mak, Pauline Tsang
*Other meeting point and time:
8:45am Smells: Inside King George V Park, Sai Ying Pun (Entrance on Eastern Street, close to the corner of High Street)
9:45am Typography: Cheung Hing Tea Hong, 76 Queen's Road West
10:20am Neon signs: The Pawn on Johnston Road, Wanchai
10:55am Urban perspectives: North Point MTR Station, Exit A2 Street Level
11:30pm Senses and experience: TUVE, 16 Tsing Fung Street, Tin Hau
Cabaret Series: Excess (Too High Density)
Date: 9th July 2017
Time: 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: Studio 9 design gallery and studio, Wong Chuk Hang
Attendance: RSVP required (prior registration needed to gain access: https://goo.gl/forms/8ruejpnszqR0JnRs1 )
Excess, a fundamental term in modern aesthetic theory, enables the self but also annihilates it. The high density of Hong Kong constitutes one of its fundamental identities, but when is high density too high? Cabaret Series: Excess presents a series of performances about the costs and benefits of high-density urban living, as well as explorations on more sustainable ideas of growth and development.
Cabaret Series: Excess is hosted in partnership with Studio 9. Refreshments are kindly provided by The Coffee Academics.
The Cabaret Series develops modes of expression that engage with contemporary discourses, audiences, and physical space in a playful and humorous manner. These events aim to produce new forms of communication between speakers, performers, and spectators through provocation, seduction, and immediacy.
Participants: Ethel Baraona, Gary Chang, Eva Franch, William Lane, Zheng Mahler, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Thomas Tsang, Ahlaiya Yung
Storefront for Art and Architecture: www.storefrontnews.org