Syndicated from Design China
With Beijing Design Week currently in Milan, we discuss with Ai Weiwei the success, effects and failures of last year’s event in the last of our unique interview series.
Last year, the team behind CCD – The Community used Beijing Design Week (BJDW) as a launching platform.…
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Part 2 of a three-part interview series with renowned China creative, Ai Weiwei.
What is your understanding of ‘craft thinking’?
No craft is pure craft unless there is a use or function involved. Craft is a method of expression, which eventually leads to a purpose.…
Syndicated from Design China
In a special three-part interview, Design China talks to internationally-celebrated, China-based creative Ai Weiwei about Caochangdi Village, his thoughts on Beijing Design Week and what young, local creatives need to do in order to survive here.…
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“Caochangdi is a microcosm of 21st-century China. Rural migrants come from the provinces — historic Hubei, impoverished Anhui, subtropical Sichuan — in search of opportunity in the big cities, but a lack of marketable skills and the inability to gain an urban hukou, or residency status, limit their access to housing and prevent them from obtaining social services like education and health care.…
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“Four years after Beijing hosted a spectacular summer Olympics, China’s bustling capital sees vastly improved public transport and infrastructure, but many of the venues built for the event languish unloved, underused and draining public finances.
The jewels in the crown were two architecturally-stunning buildings – the main Bird’s Nest stadium and the Water Cube aquatics center, described by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge as ‘beautiful’ and ‘unprecedented’.…
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“In a crazy sense, I think the political space in China has truly transformed Ai Weiwei’s life into an interdisciplinary work of art or a ‘social performance’, as he calls it. His invocation of the Chinese state’s ire came through a combination of critical sculptures, writings, photographs, videos and installations.…
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