China Design Now

Chen Man, China Design Now, courtesy V&A

It’s all about China; from the ever-growing outsource and production industries to the imminent Bejing Olympic games, Chinese culture is becoming further entwined with our own. As East meets West in ever increasing ways, this powerful seminal exhibition at the V&A is at the cutting edge of China’s design and popular culture, and what a blockbusting showcase it is.

The UK-wide China Now festival  is the UK’s largest ever celebration of Chinese culture and runs this year from January to the end of July, coinciding with both the Chinese New Year and the launch of the Olympics. China Design Now at the V&A locks into the zeitgeist by offering a showcase for some of China’s most prominent and innovative rising star designers. 
A momentous and striking exploration of the recent explosion of new design, the show captures the spirit of modern China as it wrestles with modernity and growth during a dynamic phase of renaissance.

By focussing on three cities undergoing rapid expansion – Bejing, Shanghai and Shenzen -  the exhibition takes a wander through contemporary China along the East Coast from South to North and shows  a rapidly developing society through the eyes of graphic, fashion, product and furniture designers, film makers, illustrators, architects and photographers.

From Shenzhen, the Frontier City, we see a pioneering emergence of graphic design, and the work produced by the first graphic designers in China. For the first time creative disciplines exist for the Chinese, and co-ops and collaborations of design practices now trade as an entirely new genre of workforce.

In Shanghai, the Dream City, we see a re-birth and celebration of opulent colonial glamour as Shanghai Chic, and the hopes and dreams of a city expanding at meteroric rate explored through visual media and pop culture ephemera. This city has a new middle class, a consumer society and all-new lifestyle culture that is inspiring the taste-makers to innovate and create new status symbols and design icons for the contemporary generation.

In Bejing, the Future City the urban space regeneration and ambitious architectural mega-structures are demonstrative of the phenomenal changes occurring right now. We see cutting edge global design as it is happening, and the effect this will make not only on the landscapes of China but the lives of the young architects at the drawing boards.

We forget, until China Design Now reminds us, that ‘design’ is a relatively new term in China.
This is a communist society, a large expanse of Asia suffering from immense poverty, where function has been far more important than form, cost more essential than aesthetics, and consumption has, up until recently, been purely on a level of survival. It is not ironic then, that the country which gave us the invention of paper has, until now, been lagging behind with the designs to make use of it.

The last 25 years have seen social, cultural and economic reforms occurring at an incredible pace. China Design Now, under the ingenious direction of curators Zhang Hongzing and Lauren Parker of the V&A, is a snapshot of where China has got to as it will inevitably continue to gain momentum.
Key players in this cultural rebirth are emerging from obscurity to stardom through this exposure, a global announcement of the arrival of Chinese Design.

Highlights include sweeping visuals of the Olympic architectural projects in Bejing, graphic design spanning the last two decades from the post-Mao pioneers to the experimentalists of today, photography, furniture and fashion in a 1930’s glamour renaissance and products for the design conscious youth of China. This is a clear visual embodiment of entrepreneurial spirit, of freedom, change and aspirations on a local and global scale.

One of the most poignant exhibits is a set of still photographs entitled ‘Shanghai Living’, in which portraits of Shanghai residents are displayed with their personal statements. In the midst of a significant exhibition of change we are reminded that the division and segragation is stark among the Chinese; whilst growth is ensuing, poverty still exists, a dichotomy tangibly clear throughout the show.

China Design Now has well and truly put Chinese design on the global map. An incredible and inspiring collection of the innovators at the helm of China’s cultural journey, this is a visual reportage of change at every level embodied in design.
We may be used to the tag “made in China”, but watch for “Designed in China.”, a nation that is, well and truly, now.

Jo Gifford

China Design Now, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL, unitl 13th July
Buy your tickets here

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