China Design Now
China has been a frequent site of interest and intrigue since I first studied it two years ago. Thinking of China still evokes imagery of old: a wasteful and disorganised agrarian economy and bucolic society. Yet the failure of The Great Leap Forward to produce an industrialised communist society in the 1950s triggered riots and almost civil war. What resulted was the modern China we know today.
In place of collectivised agriculture and wide-scale state-owned enterprise, we see growing fiscal decentralisation; private banking systems, stock markets and businesses; even consent for the investment of external multinationals. It is an exceptionally exciting time in which personal income and consumption are being actively promoted by a communist government.
Of course, while it is interesting to observe a capitalist economic system operate within the inhibitory socio-economic structure of communism, there are clear weaknesses from a Western perspective: the absence of labour unions and civil liberties; the lack of freedom of speech and of press; and the dramatic social polarisation between rich and poor, to name but a few. There is certainly not enough space here to go deep into such details, suffice to say that China is now the second largest economy in the world and increasingly accepting of cultural and economic globalisation.
It is this revolution that brings me to China Design Now, an exhibit on display at the V&A until 13 July. It explores the renaissance in art and design culture that attempts to broach and understand the rapid social and cultural changes taking place within China. After fifteen years of growing global influences and the measured reduction of repressive social statutes, the country and its burgeoning middle classes are subject to a revolutionary cultural juxtaposition between the liberalising forces of a democratic West and the suppressive political influence of the Chinese state.
This state is still only exposing the country to global influences on a fragmentary basis, leaving many of the more bucolic areas of inner China relatively untouched by the newfound wealth of more noninterventionist coastal districts. Though it doesn’t give recognition to these limitations and the plight of rural areas, the exhibition does at least give a nod to the diversity present within modern China and the differing experiences of capitalism therein.
Accordingly, China Design Now looks at three culturally distinct geographical areas: Shenzhen covers graphic design and youth culture prevalent within the city’s luxury shopping districts; Shanghai deals with fashion and interior design, and more generally the consumerist explosion taking place across coastal regions; while Beijing examines the ground breaking architectural endeavours borne from China’s key business districts.
With freedom within design still being a relatively new concept to China, the exhibition is bound to display an exciting panorama representative of approaches by modern Chinese designers to fuse traditional elements of classical Chinese culture with new ideas from around the world. It will be interesting to see whether the designers on display exhibit a wistful nostalgia for old China, or whether they are in fact trapped within its long and deeply embedded confines.
China Design Now is just one part of China Now, a national celebration of Chinese culture launched in February.
_____
Image: Wing Shya @ Shya-la-la Production, The Soft Touch, Pearls of the Orient for Time Magazine Supplement, Spring 2005
Comments
3 Responses to “China Design Now”
Leave a Reply
Might this be the exhibit you were hoping to see in May? If so, it sounds fascinating and i’d love to come along. If it isn’t - it still sounds good and i’d love to come along.
The one I mentioned before was another exhibit: Alexander Rodchenko at the Southbank Centre. Unfortunately this latter display finishes before our visit to Westminster, so I’m planning an earlier visit to combine Rodchenko and China into a day separate from our political activities.
I’d love for you to accompany me.
With Western art and design so influenced by the East, it’s interesting to see art taking cues from our own aesthetic.