Bicycle, high-speed rail, smart suitcase: Chinese design past, present and future on show
- A history of modern Chinese design in 70 objects – that was how curator Fan Zhe approached the task of showcasing the country’s creativity to Europeans
- From the ‘not always beautiful’ objects of post-war years to modern consumers’ demand for quality and uniqueness, exhibition shows Chinese design’s advance
It may have a population of 1.4 billion and the world’s second largest economy, but China’s design scene is still relatively unknown abroad. A showcase at the St Étienne International Design Biennial in France – whose theme is “Me/You/Nous: Designing Common Ground” – aims to change that.
“We wanted people to realise that China is not just a country that produces and copies,” says Lisa White, curator of the biennale. “It is now a country that designs and creates.”
For France-based artist Fan Zhe, director of the Sino-French Contemporary Art Centre in Le Chambon sur Lignon in central France and curator of the Chinese contribution to the biennale (which continues to April 21), it’s about opening a window on Chinese culture and society.
“I wanted to introduce the European public to Chinese design and show them how we live. That’s why I haven’t focused on limited or rare design pieces but rather on consumer goods and items that people use every day.”
His exhibition is called Équilibre (“balance” in English) because it’s a notion at the heart of Chinese culture. “We have 5,000 years of history in China, and though at times our history has been interrupted, our culture carries on. We always try to find balance between nature and man, between the different cultures present in the country, and so on.”
Showing a balanced overview of the country is also the reason he divided the exhibition into three sections dedicated to the past, present and future. In the historical section 70 objects are presented on wooden packing cases that provide an overview of 70 years of manufacturing and design in China, from the inception of the People’s Republic to the present day.
They are mostly functional, and range from vacuum flasks, rice cookers, flashlights and bicycles to radios, televisions, metal lunchboxes, clocks and toys, and are remarkable for their ordinariness and familiarity, as well as their well-worn and well-loved appearance.
“The objects are simple and not always beautiful, and sometimes they are copies of European pieces,” says Fan. “The focus in the post-war period was on fulfilling basic needs rather than creativity. Then we had the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, which cut everything off for 10 years and was felt for decades. There wasn’t much consumption so there wasn’t much manufacturing or design either.”
People didn’t have a lot of resources in China until 20 years ago, but still they consumed and made things they needed, he says, pointing to a logo for a fabrics factory stencilled on to a simple sheet of metal and spray-painted. It’s a DIY item, straightforward and unflashy, but has a utilitarian beauty and does exactly what it needs to.
“We wanted to show the intuitive intelligence of the Chinese; even when they don’t have a lot of resources, they always find a way to make what they need.”
Elsewhere, an accordion made in the 1980s for children is an example of a luxury item: “It would have taken an average family a year to save for it,” says Fan.
The section dedicated to the present day is divided into themes such as health, mobility and the home and is about showing different facets of life in China and the latest evolutions in design. On display are advances made in the medical sphere and high-speed rail, and exhibits that show how much design goes into practical devices such as face masks and thermometers. There’s even a sink with a waist-height horizontal dishwasher that you don’t need to bend over to fill.
The most compelling objects are a series of explorations by the Yuhang Rong design library in Hangzhou, which carries out research into traditional materials and crafts. Woven fabrics with beautiful motifs, made and still used by some of China’s minority ethnic groups, have been transformed into contemporary tiling made with eco-friendly vegetable pigments and minerals.
“This is also a way to protect our culture and heritage,” says Fan. “And it shows how Chinese consumers have changed. They want something of high quality, something unique, with personality, that is charged with culture. This is something that has developed very fast in China. ”
In the section dedicated to the future, design is seen through the prism of five Unesco design cities in China – Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Wuhan – and objects such as immersive digital installations, videos and smart objects (like smartphone-app-operated suitcases that follow you around). It is interesting, but the chaotic presentation makes it hard to determine the focus. This, it turns out, is a perfect metaphor for design in China, according to Fan.
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“There isn’t one sector of design that is most developed yet, and there aren’t really stand-out pieces yet, but we have the largest population in the world and a rapidly expanding middle class, and design in all sectors is evolving all the time,” he says.
Something else obvious is that there is no identifiable Chinese design language, in the same way you can speak about Japanese or Scandinavian design. “Give us 10 or 20 years and we will have that too,” says Fan.
