Students to enjoy design experience at Hong Kong Design Year summer programmes (with photo)

A series of activities will be launched during the summer vacation for students to showcase their creativity and share design experience. These include "The Terracotta Warrior Inspired Design" Public Art Programmes, World Design Summer Camp and "Tian Tian Xiang Shang" Creativity-For-Community and School Development Programme, which are part of 2012 Hong Kong Design Year presented by Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) and organised by Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC).

The Head of CCIDAHK, Mr Jerry Liu, said at a press briefing today (June 14), "These three programmes target students and tie in well with CreateHK's strategies of nurturing local talent and fostering a creative atmosphere within the community. They have our full support.

"We hope students can experience the fun of design and broaden their cross-cultural knowledge through these interactive learning and exchange activities. They are poised to be a new creative generation that helps promote development of the local creative economy."

"The Terracotta Warrior Inspired Design" Public Art Programmes are co-organised by the Art Promotion Office of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and HKDC. They carry the theme of terracotta warriors to tie in with the exhibition "The Majesty of All Under Heaven: The Eternal Realm of China's First Emperor" to be staged by the Hong Kong Museum of History from July to November. The programme features a series of youth and student activities, including an animation/video design competition and a fashion design competition launched earlier, as well as a youth programme and a parents and kids workshop to start in July. Participants are encouraged to use their creativity to design terracotta warrior-related works. Their works will be put on display in an exhibition at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre from August to September.

World Design Summer Camp is organised by HKDC to provide opportunities in academic and cultural exchange for design students, with a view to deepening their understanding of Eastern and Western cultures and the latest design trends. Fifty design students from local tertiary institutes were sponsored to take a Milan Design Study Tour in April to visit Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the Milan Design Week and more. A summer camp will also be held in July for 100 design students from local tertiary institutes and 100 Asian, European and American students to share their experiences in Eastern and Western designs. They will join sharing sessions by world-renowned designers and visits to popular cultural and design art spots in the Pearl River Delta region.

Organised by Zuni Icosahedron, the "Tian Tian Xiang Shang" Creativity-For-Community and School Development Programme includes interactive workshops and exhibitions staged in the community and schools. The workshops have been joined by 2 000 students and 800 members of the public, who are encouraged to create their own sculpture works based on the "Tian Tian Xiang Shang" comics created by Mr Danny Yung. There will be a roving exhibition held in different locations from July to September. A finale exhibition will be held in November at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre to showcase the works created by students and the public at the workshops as well as sculptures made by 100 celebrated contemporary artists, designers and people from different sectors of society.

In closing, Mr Liu noted that 2012 Hong Kong Design Year also offers other activities suitable for students and the public. Starting from July, there will be a number of large-scale exhibitions and conferences which are being held in Hong Kong for the first time, including "Ingenuity Follows Nature - A Poster Exhibition of Asian Designers & Tong Yang-Tze's Calligraphy", "Hong Kong Design Legacy and Beyond", AGI Open & Congress 2012, "Colours of Asia" and more.

For details of the three summer programmes, please visit the 2012 Hong Kong Design Year website at www.hkdesignyear.hk.

Thursday, June 14, 2012