The past forty years in China have seen a significant amount of social, political and cultural change, and we are now living in what has come to be described as the ‘Chinese century’. What role does art and design have in shaping Chinese society?
Celebrating the launch of The Centre: On Art and Urbanism in China, NGV curators and practitioners discuss a range of critical perspectives on contemporary China, considering how artists and designers present their own views of what it means to be Chinese in a contemporary world.
The Centre: On Art and Urbanism in China, published by the NGV, is a collection of newly commissioned texts that examine modes of creative production, exhibition, curating, collecting and urban transformation, against a backdrop of critical perspectives on the historical moment and speculative futures. It features a range of key Chinese practitioners working today across art, design and architecture, and acts as an entry point to ongoing engagement with contemporary China.
Includes a short introduction to the publication by Megan Patty, Head of Publications, NGV.
The Centre: On Art and Urbanism in China can be purchased online or in store at NGV design store.
Moderator
Dr Pippa Dickson is the Director of Asialink Arts where she is committed to facilitating true partnership and cooperation between Australia and Asia in the arts and creative industry sectors. Pippa has extensive arts leadership experience both nationally and internationally. In addition to positions as the Director of the National Association for Visual Artists (NAVA) and Co-Chair of the National Craft Initiative, Pippa founded Design Island for Arts Tasmania and is the founding CEO of the Glenorchy Art & Sculpture Park.
Speakers
Jing Liu is Co-founder and Principal of SO-IL, an internationally recognized architecture and design firm based in New York. Through building practice and interdisciplinary research projects, Liu has led SO–IL in the engagement with the socio-political issues of contemporary cities. Her projects range from artistic collaborations with contemporary choreographers and visual artists to master plan and major public realm design in cities like Melbourne and Indianapolis.
Yan-hong Huang is a Melbourne based artist/designer. A former automotive designer who worked in the US, China, Italy and Australia for major automotive brands, Yan is the creative force behind Yandesign Studio which offers beautifully crafted functional sculptures with artistic vision, design solutions, and meticulous craftsmanship. Minimalist in style, Yan’s creations push boundaries, fuse form and function, explore materiality and are always unique.
Dr Simon Maidment is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and curator of A Fairy Tale in Red Times: Works from the White Rabbit Collection, as well as being co-editor of the NGV publication The Centre: On Art and Urbanism in China. His PhD research used curatorial practice as a method to investigate art’s potential to influence social and political change.
Annika Aitken is Curatorial Project Officer of Asian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). She has been on the curatorial team for Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality and Cai Guo-Qiang: The Transient Landscape and is co-editor of the NGV publication The Centre: On Art and Urbanism in China. Prior to commencing her position at the NGV, she managed a range of permanent and temporary public art projects for City of Perth and the WA Artists’ Foundation, alongside independent curatorial projects. She has studied and worked in Beijing and Hangzhou, China, and has a longstanding research interest in Australia-Asia engagement through the visual arts.