On May 18th, 2020, as the International Museum Day’s sub-activity of ICOM (International Council of Museums), Social Design Exhibition Asia held its opening ceremony at Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen.
It is by far China mainland’s first large-scale social design themed exhibition, under the guidance of CNWCESD (China National Working Committee for UNESCO Project on ESD), and co-organised by People’s Government of Huli Xiamen and Xiamen Culture Media Group, and undertaken by Huli Xiamen Culture and Tourism Bureau and Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen.
More than 100 Global Real-life Social Design Cases Illustrate Diversity and Inclusion
Social Design is an action. By transforming the way of thinking and social coordination, social design integrates professional means including management, design, creativity, technology, business and communication in a multidisciplinary perspective to solve social problems, it aims to form a more healthy and sustainable society.
Social Design Exhibition Asia consists of more than 100 latest global social design cases from 20 countries and regions, including themes of circular economy, disaster response, education diversity, minority care, urban innovation, etc. Through these cases, the exhibition intuitively shows how does the design energy solves social issues and create a better society.
“How to help diabetes children to relieve the stress? How to improve the recycling and reuse of resources from the very beginning? What are the new possibilities of disaster response and prevention after innovative design? …”
The exhibition presents with methods including real-life cases, stories and videos, to showcase how domestic and international brands, non-profits, and governments to respond to the most current issues of the contemporary society.
The Exhibition Creates Zero Waste and Practically Make Proposals for the Future
Different from other exhibitions which use single-use construction materials, Social Design Exhibition Asia keeps the whole curation process to use re-usable or second-hand materials. This is to practically act to achieve the mission of re-use and zero waste.
Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen hopes to directly let the audience learn about and participate in social design. In the last section of the exhibition, a wall is designed for audience to leave notes and write down their proposals for the future.
Social Design Action— Everyone is Social Designer
The “Social Design Action" trilogy initiated by Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen in 2020 hopes to awaken public awareness towards social issues and promote the construction of China’s social design ecosystem, through 3 sub-actions — exhibition, conference, and co-creation workshop.
The Social Design Co-creation Workshop has begun online in March, and received more than 2,320 applications. Finally, 120 people from multiple industries were selected to become members of the workshop. Under the theme of “disaster response and prevention”, 7 professional lecturers led the 40-day workshop. The deliverables will be presented at the Social Design Exhibition Asia.
“Social design isn’t the work only for designers. Instead, city governors, industry leaders, companies, schools, and the public can all participate in social design. Red Dot Design Museum Xiamen hopes to involve more people into the social design action and together propose for a better future society,” as Sean Shih, the China General Manager of Red Dot, said at scene. “Today, May 18th is the International Museum Day. This year, the theme published by ICOM (International Council of Museums) is ‘Diversity and Inclusion’. It’s an honor that our opening ceremony has been listed as one of ICOM’s sub-activities. Therefore, the opening ceremony has a more profound societal meaning.”
In 2020, the COVID-19 has shocked the global community. Let’s slow down our pace of life, and pay attention to the human society. For a better and sustainable society, let’s use design energy to make proposals for the future!
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