Guided Visit: Minding the Digital and Values of Design at the Design Society and V&A Gallery in Shekou

On this excursion across the border, we will visit the Design Society and the V&A Gallery in Shekou, the very first museum dedicated to design in China. Housed in a new building designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Fumihiko Maki, the Design Society will open with two inaugural exhibitions: “Values of Design” in the V&A Gallery and “Minding the Digital” in the Main Gallery. 

After arriving at the Shekou Ferry Terminal, our private coach will take us to the Design Society. 

Guided by Curator Carrie Chan, we will visit “Minding the Digital” in the morning. “Minding the Digital”, explores how design shapes the present and the future, positioning digital design as a platform to connect technology with human values. Through its presentation of a cross-disciplinary array of design, “Minding the Digital” embraces digitalization as a key innovative force. It is timely to ask how we can define this phenomenon in the most creative way. Design Society’s Senior Curator Carrie Chan will guide us through “Minding the Digital”. 

After lunch we will see “Values of Design” guided by Dr Luisa Elena Mengoni, Head of the V&A Gallery, Shekou, and Design Society Director Ole Bouman. This first exhibition at the V&A Gallery will consider how values drive design and how design is valued, as well as highlighting the key role that design plays in society. “Values of Design” has been curated and designed specifically for the V&A Gallery, Shekou at Design Society and will feature exhibits drawn from the V&A’s major collections of fashion, photography, furniture, product and graphic design, theatre and performance and will showcase objects that represent key turning points in the history of design against the backdrop of Shenzhen, a city in which design and manufacturing are developing at a rapid rate. 

The trip concludes when our private coach takes us back to Shekou Ferry Terminal for the ferry ride back to Hong Kong. 

Resource Persons 
Dr Luisa Elena Mengoni is Head of the V&A Gallery, Shekou at Design Society and coordinates in China the collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and China Merchants Shekou. She was Curator of Chinese art at the V&A, Curator of Chinese ceramics at the British Museum and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London (UCL). She worked as consultant on World Bank heritage projects in Guizhou and Chongqing. Holding a degree in Chinese Studies from Università degli Studi L’Orientale (Napoli) and a PhD from University College London (UCL) she taught on Chinese art and archaeology, cultural heritage and museology at the V&A, UCL, SOAS, Christie’s Education and Sotheby’s Institute. Her latest publications focus on Chinese export art and global trade, collecting history, cultural heritage and Chinese crafts and design. 

Ole Bouman, former Creative Director of the Urbanism/Architecture Bi-City Biennale Shenzhen (2013-14), is now the director of Design Society, Shenzhen. Since mid 1990s Ole Bouman has shown outstanding achievements in writing, curating and teaching. He was the editor-in-chief of Volume, a magazine he co-founded with Rem Koolhaas and Mark Wigley. His publications include The Invisible in Architecture (coauthor, 1994) and Architecture of Consequence (2009). Between 2006 and 2013, Ole Bouman was the director of Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI). He was involved in and curated Manifesta 3 (2000), the architecture Biennales of Shenzhen, São Paulo and Venice, etc. Besides, Ole Bouman taught architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Carrie Chan is the Senior Curator at Design Society. In her capacity, she oversees content of exhibitions and public art at the institution. Have a dual background in communications and design, the Hong Kong native has wide-ranging experiences in creating cross-disciplinary design projects and exhibitions. She was most recently a lecturer at Hong Kong Design Institute, with active roles in academic publications, curriculum development, exhibitions and artist-in-residence programmes. Prior to that, she worked for British fashion label Boudicca on their fashion collections and creative exhibition projects in key galleries such as Haunch of Venison and Arnhem Mode Biennale. She was previously a features writer for South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.