River of creative concepts

A new exhibition celebrates the vibrant, multicultural and inclusive nature of HK's design scene that progressively got better over the last two decades. A report by Liana Cafolla.

With the opening of a new exhibition featuring outstanding works by Hong Kong designers, we might actually have a clue as to what excellence in creative design looks like. A visit to the newly-opened Confluence 20+ exhibition in Hong Kong City Hall reveals that design excellence can be found in everything - textiles, porcelain, jewelry, furniture, 3D printing, and the creation of evocative spaces for peaceful contemplation - to name just a few.

Excellent design can take the form of expertly crafted furniture that looks both elegant and also meets practical needs, like the works by Samuel Chan. It might also constitute only a simple, almost empty, space that evokes a particular mood, as in the installation created by experience designer Kingsley Ng. And again it may be found in the designs, textiles and stories put together by fashion designer Sharon de Lyster.

Chan, Wong and De Lyster are among 20 cross-discipline designers taking part in Confluence 20+, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the HKSAR that runs in tandem with workshops and activities open to the general public. Organized by the Hong Kong Design Centre in conjunction with CreateHK, the exhibition opened in Milan before its three-week run in Hong Kong, and will continue on to Seoul and Chicago later this year.

It took curator Amy Chow six months to put together the show, covering a broad spectrum of features pertaining to new design - collaboration, innovation, sustainability and heritage revitalization, among others.

"In this exhibition, I try to take an in-depth look at design, as an instrument for communicating identity and values, and as a starting point for new economic development strategies," she explains.

The word "confluence" in the exhibition title is inspired by the idea of a river merging with others and bringing together different streams. It's meant as a metaphor for Hong Kong which Chow has tried to project as an international Asian city exposed to varied cultural influences and where different design styles meet and flourish against the backdrop of a vibrant creative industry.

Chow sees the exhibition as epitomizing the transitions, collaboration and plurality evident in the field of design in Hong Kong today.

"Much of the work presented at Confluence 20+ is the result of the encounters and interactions of people, the building of relationships and a community created across social, economic, educational and cultural divisions in the last two decades," she says. "Most importantly, our East-meets-West insight has lent fresh eyes to both local and international designers."

Multicultural inheritances

The designers participating in the exhibition are themselves models of intercultural backgrounds, with many having studied or lived abroad.

Textile designer Elaine Ng Yan-ling was born in the UK into a family originally from Hong Kong and has also lived in Beijing. Her eye-catching interactive robotics video and textile creation, "A Tale of the Sensus", is named after a mythical deep-sea creature.

"I moved to Hong Kong two and a half years ago from Beijing and London," she says. "I found it difficult to get my textiles made, and I thought if I have this problem, others must have the same problem."

The main problem was finding manufacturers willing to work in small quantities or create a one-off piece, which Ng solved by looking further afield. After setting herself the challenge of building a prototype in just six weeks, she successfully brought together robot engineering, lighting and knitted textile programmers to complete her project. She designed the textiles in Hong Kong, got the 3D printing done in Shenzhen where the finished product was also assembled.

Hong Kong-born Samuel Chan moved to the UK to study furniture design and set up a business, designing and making furniture from sustainable wood sources. His exhibits include flexible bookcases designed for the typically compact design of Hong Kong homes. Each shelf is detachable and can stand on its own as well.

"The concept is you just stack them," he explains.

Another piece, an elegant tall shoe storage cupboard in walnut, was commissioned by the design company Wallpaper, he says. Originally intended as a one-off product, Wallpaper is now selling it. Lane Crawford stocks them too.

Moon Gate, by Kingsley Ng, takes up a quiet corner of the exhibition. It's a square shape with white walls, soft white carpet and natural lighting. Recordings of Hong Kong news stories selected from the last 20 years play at a low volume on a small transistor radio in Cantonese, and the setting is designed to encourage quiet contemplation of Hong Kong's development over the past two decades. The Chinese characters used to write the name suggest the ideas of relaxation and leisure, explains Dylan Kwok, a designer who helped Ng create the installation.

Near the center of the exhibition, Sharon de Lyster stands before a wall displaying some of her textile designs and tools that were used to make garments in different parts of the world. Her exhibit features examples of Indonesian batik, Bangladeshi quilting and Guizhou weaving and aims to celebrate cultural diversity within Asia by looking at the stories behind different textile styles. A graphic map shows the linkages between the regions and products.

"I do very much respect and promote the livelihoods of the makers and I try to tell their stories through the project," explains De Lyster. "I want to show we are a connecting point for the different community groups in Asia."

(HK Edition 06/09/2017 page1)