Art Attack: Beijing Design Week Special Edition

For those sticking around in Beijing during the holiday, Beijing Design Week presents a great opportunity to engage with the city’s artistic community while checking out some fun and highly interactive exhibits and events. We’ve got a roundup for you with a focus on the new hub at Caochangdi, but plenty of links and info for everything that will be going on as part of the weeklong festival.

This year, Beijing Design Week takes place in four main areas: Dashilar near Qianmen, CMoDA in the southwest part of town, 751 D-Park in 798 and the Caochangdi artists’ village in the northeast.

CAOCHANGDI
This is the first year Caochangdi will serve as one of the hubs for the week and we’re excited about what they’ve got planned. Here are some highlights (all taking place Sep 28-Oct 6 at or nearby the RAWR Innovation Labs space):

Memories of the Future
Noumenon imagine a future where furniture comes in a tiny cube, then magically transforms into a fully functional chair/couch/table once you’ve brought it home. No more assembling, no more particle-board, no more blisters from using those tiny Ikea allen wrenches. But apparently, they’ve gone one step beyond imagining. At BJDW, they’ll be showing off a prototype using memory foam! I don’t know about you but that sounds frickin’ awesome.

Digital Graffiti Wall
Artists will be given infrared-sensor spray cans so their works can also be projected and transformed on a huge digital display. Interesting way to look at the future of street art in a city where the walls never stay in the same place.

Fluid Urbanism
Laboratory for Computation Design (LCD) have been working with WAX Architects to “forecast” what the future of Beijing’s hutongs areas might look like – starting of course with Dashilar. Check out their maps and 3D models of varying ways our city’s hutongs and streets might organically develop over the years (and cross your fingers for fewer luxury malls?).

Modern Sky 15th Anniversary Exhibit
Beijing’s original music label is celebrating fifteen golden years with an exhibit of their album covers and other artwork over the years.

DASHILAR
If you checked out this area last year, you can look forward to more pop-up shops, design walks and interactive art exhibits. New this year will be a series of events at Capital M, who are setting up a Design Week Lounge in the restaurant, with exhibits, film screenings, talks and a special menu throughout. Also of note in the Dashilar area are screenings by Electric Shadows.

Luma Lu 24-Hour Indie Film Competition
The creative studio invited participants to make a film in the Dashilar Hutong using a Lomokino camera. Catch the new short films throughout the week. Capital M (6702 2727)

Bamboo Installation
Sep 28 – Oct 7. See what’s possible with China’s miracle plant. Free. 11am-noon. Capital M (6702 2727)

Talk: Making a Business of Design
Sep 29-30, Oct 2-4. Five days of seminars teaching creatives how to turn their design ideas into viable businesses, with discussions on proposals, finding partners, marketing and production. Sep 29-30, Oct 2-4. Details at www.mrestaurantgroup. com. Free. 5pm. Capital M (6702 2727)

Film: The First Movie
Oct 2. Filmmaker Mark Cousins set up a film projector in a village once targeted by Saddam Hussein's genocidal attacks on Kurds in northern Iraq. There, he showed children classic family films like ET and The Red Balloon. Then, he gave those kids their own cameras and set them loose. See their striking creations in his final documentary. RMB 30. 8pm. The Factory at Dashilar

Film: Gallivant
Oct 3. Join the director, his grandmother and his daughter on an adventurous ride around the British coastline shot in beautiful Super 8 and video. RMB 30. 8pm. The Factory at Dashilar

Short Films (part of M.A.D. Festival)
Oct 4. Two new works by Matt Hulse: one, a layered digital montage commissioned to accompany a modern recomposition of Vivaldi's "Summer" from the Four Seasons suite. The other, an abstraction of the process of hand-weaving tapestry. RMB 30. 8pm. The Factory at Dashilar

CHINA MUSEUM OF DIGITAL ARTS (CMODA)
The new media museum on the southwest part of Beijing is a huge, impressive space and they'll be pulling out a couple tricks from up their sleeve. Worth the trek to check out the venue itself.

GeoCity Smart City
Sep 28-Oct 14. The exhibition maps information design and application cases for “smart city” initiatives around the world. Free. China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts (5980 2320)

751 D-PARK/798
Of course, Beijing’s main art district will be getting in on the action. One of the bigger ticket shows will be architect Yung Ho Chang’s exhibit opening this Saturday at the UCCA. But of course, there’s plenty of other events and exhibits to see.

You can read more brief descriptions about all the events directly at the Beijing Design Week website.

Enjoy!

Photos: Courtesy of CCD – The Community at BJDW