An artful embrace of culture
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E-mail China Daily, May 17, 2017
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The Yuanliu competition by Peking University offers a good platform for young talents to put their creative ideas into products.[Photo provided to China Daily] |
Crossover cooperation
The blue logo of the Yuanliu Campaign is his department's first effort to show that cultural heritage is visually appealing while embedded with secrets of a civilization. Designed by Jia, it resembles a pottery owl head belonging to the Neolithic Yangshao Culture.
The round object was excavated by the department's students in Hua county, in northwestern Shaanxi province, in the 1950s.
But researchers still aren't sure what it was used for.
Meanwhile, the campaign has brought together a team of teachers and students from various academic departments. They operate a WeChat account to post articles, introduce antique works of art and comment on ongoing exhibitions. The followers include students, journalists, designers and researchers.
Hang says the cross-disciplinary mindset is widely practiced at Peking University, because it is believed to broaden a graduate's career prospects.
The campaign's second design competition is to be launched in the second half of the year.
Wang Jiayue, a teacher at the department who heads the Yuanliu Campaign team, says many winning designs from the first competition were not perfect, and many couldn't be turned into products because of design faults.
But she applauds the students' creativity, noting that such work is a long-term commitment.
Hang says the campaign organizers also plan to collaborate with artists, designers and craftsmen to stage a series of exhibitions.
"Museums also reach out to us. They feel that the competition will provide good ideas and designs that can someday be turned into souvenirs for their shops."
Zeng Shijing, another winner at the first competition, says the Yuanliu Campaign enabled her to see many good designs, each a creative solution to blend traditional culture into daily life.
She designed an app that combines a weather forecast with beautiful female costumes of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It was also her project for her master's degree at the Tsinghua University's art and design department.
Speaking about the campaign, Zeng says: "I believe new technologies and equipment will provide more possibilities of integrating cultural heritage into our lives. And designers should play a bigger role because excellent designs will influence more people."
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