On March 1, 2016, hosted by CAFA, co-organized by Beijing Visual High-Tech Innovation Center and CAFA Art Museum, the 7th “Design for Sitting” Grand Prix Exhibition and International Invitation Exhibition was unveiled at the CAFA Art Museum. The exhibition is unfolded around the behavior of “sitting”, and extending the life emotion and cultural logic behind the behavior, received a total of 2573 design works from around the world, and there are 104 pieces on show after the final review. Party secretary of CAFA Gao Hong, Assistant to the President of CAFA and Dean of CAFA Office of Academic Affairs Wang Xiaolin, Deputy Dean of the School of Design Song Xiewei, Dean of the School of Urban Design Wang Zhong, the foreign judges of the exhibition including Naren Barfield, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Art, UK, Peter William Barker, Department Head of Kolding Design School, Denmark, Halina Kosciukiewicz, a professor at Akademia Sztuk Pi?knych w Gdańsku, Poland, Arisumi Mitamura, Vice President of Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan, as well as the curator Prof. Jiang Li from the School of Design, CAFA, and Tian Haipeng, Deputy Dean of the School of Urban Design, CAFA, attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition and awarded the representatives of the winners.

The initiator of the event Prof. Jiang Li from CAFA frankly stated that, concerns and supports by the colleges and universities, society and government, “Design for Sitting” had grown to be a towering tree from a sapling, effecting the development of Chinese design education. This “Design for Sitting” is supported by Beijing Visual High-Tech Innovation Center, and it is a part of the “Visual Beijing”, a key part reflecting academic levels and extensive social influence in the section of “Life Beijing”. It is closely linked to the intelligent urban space, visual cultural building, fashion pioneer and production of an excellent life quality and other elements, to establish a linkage mechanism together with the relevant professional institutions and organizations at home and abroad, through the forms of this exhibition and forum, to deeply explore the practice and development of the life and education of design with a social innovative horizon.

Party secretary of CAFA Gao Hong addressed the opening ceremony and he highly praised the features and achievements of the exhibition: Sitting is a daily human behavior, and also one of the most basic habits for human life, the exhibition takes “sitting” as its theme, which has been held for seven sessions, adhering to the idea of design serving for the basic way of life, the pursuit of design creating a better life way, is reflected on towards the profound humanistic care behind design. In the way of design, it enlightens us by viewing questions from a common perspective, looking for the extraordinary from the ordinary, viewing art, trend and culture from a simple perspective, to create infinite space from a small perspective. For the academic education, it also enlightens the teachers and students paying attention to daily life, and the culture behind daily life. Design is also the productivity, and Party Secretary Gao Hong also hopes the teachers and students of the academy learn more through this international platform, draw lessons from the beneficial experiences of the other colleges and universities all over the world, to promote our teaching, research and creative development to a new level.

Naren Barfield, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Art, UK is one of the judges, he highly praised the personal expressive work, which challenged the inherent and traditional concept of sitting, although they commonly answered the same old question of design, the works are full of innovative spirit as well as the traditional inheritance, also revealing interesting elements while paying attention to the environmental issues. The judges continually voted, negated and voted again, finally we had the current result, agreed as inconsistent, so did the designer, there was only one design issue, but it would lead to different answers, seeing the endless styles of interpretation.

The exhibition had a breakthrough in the display system of a part of work, the use of AR (augmented reality) technology – the audience can interact with the works with the on-site mipad, and obtain the relevant information on the virtual shaping, to experience a new way of visiting an exhibition brought by digital technology. As a key part of this “Design for Sitting”, “Starting from Local: CAFA Household Product Design Teaching Retrospective” is also synchronously held at the teaching exhibition hall in CAFA. On March 2 during the exhibition period, CAFA will also organize an international design educational thematic forum entitled “Wisdom of Development”, invited well-known designers and scholars at home and abroad to have a discussion on the “Thinking of the Development of Design Educational Globalization and Localization”.

The exhibition continues to March 20.

About the exhibition

“Design for Sitting” is a physical competition of original design, taking the behavior of “sitting” as the core for experimental research, in the past 15 years, the Grand Prix is on the basis of academic thinking on the source of design, to set a good brand effect, with a wide range of academic and social influence. It is part of the “Life Beijing” program at the Beijing Visual High-Tech Innovation Center, closely linked to the visual cultural building, creating an excellent quality of life, to establish a linkage mechanism together with the relevant professional institutions and organizations at home and abroad, through the form of an exhibition and forum, to deeply explore the practice and development of the life and education of design with a social innovative horizon.

On the interpretation of the theme, the Grand Prix seeks its essence and source, questioning the daily behavior of “sitting”, to unfold an experimental exploration and multifarious expression. “Design for Sitting” Grand Prix Exhibition was repeatedly put forward in the global design circles six times in the past ten years, starting from the behavior of “sitting” it triggers the thought on sources of the design – namely the behavior, way, environment, mood, and even aesthetics and culture of “sitting”, as it appears in daily life. In the daily life of each person, a certain period of time, a certain place, a certain feeling will trigger different demands and desires of “sitting”, capturing the momentary design thought of “sitting”, discussing how to solve some functional demands or emotional expression, or trying the possibility of new technology and new material... In short, it uses means of creating an object to realize the exploration of the design idea and experiment of “sitting”, and the results are announced to the world through the platform of the Grand Prix Exhibition.

At the same time, there is a breakthrough in the display of a part of the work, the use of AR (augmented reality) technology - the audience can interact with the works through the on-site mipad, and obtain the relevant information from the virtual shaping, to experience a new way of visiting exhibitions brought about by digital technology.

In addition, CAFA is the most authoritative art design educational organization in China, starting to organize an internationally designed educational thematic forum entitled “Wisdom of Development” during the same period of the exhibition with invited well-known designers and scholars at home and abroad having a discussion on the “Thinking of the Development of Design with Educational Globalization and Localization”.

The Jury:

Naren Barfield, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Art, UK

Peter William Barker, Department Head of Kolding Design School

Jiang Li, a professor at the School of Design, CAFA

Halina Kosciukiewicz, a professor at Akademia Sztuk Pi?knych w Gdańsku, Poland

Arisumi Mitamura, Vice President of Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan

Shi Zhenyu, an associate professor at Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University

Tian Haipeng, an associate professor and Deputy Dean of the School of Urban Design, CAFA

Wu Hongliang, Vice President of Beijing Fine Art Academy, Head of the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy

Zhang Nairen, a consultant of the School of Urban Design, CAFA, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology

Text by Zhang Wenzhi, Photo by Yang Yanyuan/CAFA ART INFO

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO