As one of most featured components of 2011 Beijing Design Week Design Hop project, the 2011 NOTCH Art Festival is taking off in mid-August. Themes of the event are “Socialized Design” and “Recycling Creativity”. Nordic and Chinese designers, architects, artists and geeks will gather in the historic area of Dashilar to ‘dig up’ its cultural resources and implement them in the creation of works aimed at benefiting the neighborhood.

NOTCH Art Festival is a cross-cultural experiment featuring cutting-edge design, architecture, media art and music. After its first five-year project launched from 2006 until 2010, NOTCH  introduces its second five-year venture in this autumn of 2011, which traces back to the original meaning of NOTCH, “the key moment” in order to explore a new theme, “FEEDBACK”.

Poster of 2011 NOTCH ART FESTIVAL

Dashilar used to play an important role in Beijing’s business and entertainment history. The main venue for this art festival, an old relay factory, used to manufacture “feedback coils”, which curiously echoes this year NOTCH theme. Nordic and local designers will work around the concepts of ‘Socialized Designs’ and ‘Community Practices’ in the effort to preserve the local historical context of Dashilar, while the ‘Recycling Creativity’ theme will be explored to seek opportunities for an industrial upgrade of the area.

NOTCH Open Workshop will be a cross-disciplinary lab in public space. It  intends to break away from the traditional retrospective format of an exhibition, and to focus on process instead of products.During the Open Workshop, Danish Graphic Design team Hvass & Hannibal will be working with Chinese Graphic Designer Been to build a pixel city farm installation using recycled milk boxes. Icelandic artist Gudrun Kristjansdottir is going to join community volunteers in creating a 3D fresco with Icelandic volcanic ashes and daily objects on the walls of the relay factory. Danish artist Jacob Sikker Remin and Finnish artist Tuomas Laitinen will collaborate with Beijing Maxpace on several interactive installation pieces to engage with the public space of Dashilar. All participants will contribute to the multi-media installation “Dashilar Map Archive”, and invite visitors to provide their feedback on the Dashilar Discovery Tour on site.

Finnish Media Artist: Hvass & Hannibal

Danmark Media Artist: Jacob Sikker Remin

Finnish Media Artist: Tuomas Laitinen

Schedules:

August 13th – September 16th, Dashilar field trip – Rediscover Dashilar traces

September 17th – 23rd, Open Workshop (Relay Factory)

September 24th, Open Workshop presentations, Dashilar Alley Opening event, media preview (at relay factory).

Copyright  2011 Beijing Design Week