Live broadcast: the 4th ZHUANGSHI Annual Symposium, 2021, to take place this week
Original announcement: ZHUANGSHI Editorial Team · ZHUANGSHI Magazine · 13 April 2021.
Since 2018, three ZHUANGSHI annual symposia on the theme “New Paradigms in Design Research” have been held in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing (online). The fourth ZHUANGSHI Annual Symposium will take place on 17–18 April 2021 in Guilin, Guangxi, with the theme “Localization”.
This symposium is jointly organised by China ZHUANGSHI Magazine and the School of Design, Guangxi Normal University. Experts and scholars from universities and design institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Guangxi and elsewhere across the country will gather to share their achievements and exchange ideas. The authors of the outstanding papers of 2020 will also be specially invited to attend, be recognised and receive certificates for their outstanding papers.
Three years have passed since the theme “New Paradigms in Design Research” was proposed, and the magazine has also edited and published three collections of essays. There are several reasons why this year’s symposium proposes “Localization”, rather than “regionality” or “indigenisation”. First, “Localization” itself already carries the meaning of indigenisation: in the present era of information technology and internationalisation, it is intended to foreground the distinctive ethnic, local and regional positions of design research. Furthermore, compared with indigenisation and regionality, the term “Localization” is more microscopic and everyday in its meaning, conveying a cultural position and attitude from the bottom up. Finally, its Chinese wording also implies design research rooted in the land and theoretical thought grounded in practice. In proposing “Localization”, the symposium hopes to draw academic attention and discussion to it as a dimension of thinking in design research, and thereby to provide a point of departure for communication and a fusion of horizons.
Symposium information
Theme: Localization. Dates: 17–18 April 2021. Location: Guilin, Guangxi, China.
Organisers: China ZHUANGSHI Magazine and Guangxi Normal University. Host: School of Design, Guangxi Normal University.
The archived announcement was published by the ZHUANGSHI editorial team on 13 April 2021. Haobo Wei’s lecture was scheduled for 10:30–11:00 on 17 April.
Poster: “The 4th ZHUANGSHI Annual Symposium” · “Localization” · 2021 · Guilin, Guangxi · 17–18 April 2021. Visual design: Yang Jin. ZHUANGSHI masthead: “Broad Design, In-depth Reading”; sponsored by Tsinghua University and organised by the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University.
Lecture abstract
Through sustained practice and observation in the vernacular regions of southwest China’s subcultural sphere, West-Line Studio has gradually recognised the symbolic structure of “place” + “ritual” as an operational framework through which the mythic imagination of vernacular ethnic communities becomes concrete existence.
The studio seeks to make explicit the environmental relationships concealed behind “place”—territory, seasonal phenomena, region and settlement, from the macro to the micro scale—and their connections with the human lifeworld. It explores how the ritual habits of ethnic communities can be combined with contemporary systems of knowledge production to establish a distinctive model of community public life: ethnic “ritual mnemonic structures” (shared history) + carriers of reactivated “memory” + generators for the reproduction of contemporary cultural knowledge + “place”. In this community model, the two structures of subcultural spheres and universal society coexist and counterbalance one another.
The studio carries this model into practice through the Shui Cultural Center as an “ancient monumental vessel” and the Yi Cultural / Visitor Center’s enactment of the “fire-chasing” rite. These projects seek a directional breakthrough for contemporary practices of “localization” in the vernacular regions of southwest China.
Lecture photographs
The three photographs on the final archive page show the lecture title; “Shui / Script” — the Shui Cultural Center as an “ancient monumental vessel”; and “Yi / Skin” — “Suspended Ritual”, Cuisuba Yi Cultural Center.
