Exhibition / 2018
Asia Design Pavilion — Milan Design Week
West-Line Studio — Lost in Guizhou
The installation brought Shui Cultural Center into an international design exhibition through printed architectural images and a studio presentation panel. The archive includes the exhibition structure and the panel introducing West-Line Studio.
The March 2018 exhibition design, Lost in Guizhou, brings together Shui Cultural Center’s pitched roof and ritual atmosphere with Chetian’s local blue-stone construction. The archived layout drawings document the proposed installation.
Exhibition installation
Invitation and visitor information
Exhibitor directory
Exhibition design
Plan terminology
Italian labels on the organiser’s plan: ingresso — entrance; area relax — lounge area; accesso carraio — vehicle access; corridoio uscite di sicurezza — emergency-exit corridor; mq — square metres. West-Line Studio’s allocated plot is 5 × 5 m, or 25 m².
Official exhibition report
International media coverage
Asia Design Pavilion · English translation of the Italian report
A new addition to Fuorisalone 2018 is Asia Design Pavilion. For the first time at Design Week, a unified, coordinated project supported by the Municipality of Milan presents new design trends and a cultural cross-section of the varied Asian world, from the Middle to the Far East. Designers, studios and organisations from China, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Korea, Singapore, Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Israel have chosen Fuorisalone as a global stage.
Created through a partnership between Sarpi Bridge–Oriental Design Week, Milano Space Makers and I-des italyshenzen.com, Asia Design Pavilion occupies the large exhibition hangar at Megawatt Court, Via Watt 15, Milan. For one week it becomes a multicultural, multidisciplinary hub for discovering the innovative spirit, emerging trends and design ideas of this lively and original cross-section of Asia.
The exhibitions include Slow Hand Design–Thai Popism, exploring Thai popular culture through objects by winners of Thailand’s design award; Studio Haus’s Kindred Spirits collection, drawing on Indian philosophy; and the colourful work of Design Clinic India. Mostafa Arvand presents the Persian collection from Iran. From Qatar, artist and designer Othman M. Khunji addresses discrimination against women through three installations.
China presents projects coordinated by the World Art Center in Beijing, as well as work by two architectural practices. West-Line Studio’s installation introduces visitors to Chetian Cultural Center and Shui Cultural Center in Guizhou. Lifeng Lin’s Human Define Form explores how architecture can influence human behaviour. Japanese designer Kazuyo Komoda presents Joy, a hospitality and food-experience project with BK1.
The programme also includes Heritage Sang Il by Korean designer Jeong Sang Il, and a jewellery collection produced through collaboration between established international designers and young Cambodians.
Artribune · English translation of the archived article
Carolina Mancini, 20 April 2018. “Salone Observatory: Four Projects to Discover.” Alongside established institutions and brands, unfamiliar organisations are ready to offer new interpretations of design. Four promising projects, ranging from new exhibition formats to furnishings, demonstrate the freshness with which Fuorisalone renews itself.
Asia Design Pavilion offers a multi-ethnic perspective. The Megawatt Court hangar becomes an index of creativity: China, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Korea, Singapore, Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Israel bring the organisations and design studios that define Asia’s varied geography onto Fuorisalone’s global stage. Like NoLo in Milan and Kreuzberg in Berlin, the hangar becomes an energetic multicultural hub, ready to reveal the names and personalities of a continent still to be discovered.
Image caption: Asia Design Pavilion — West-Line Studio, Chetian Cultural Center. Venue: Via Watt 15, Milan.