There and Back Again: Our Chinese Adventure Part One: The Exhibition

So what did we hope to find there?

Honestly, despite the wealth of research we did before heading out, we really weren’t sure. Why were we going? That, at least, is easy to answer: we were invited by the Shenzhen Creative Investment who run the Shenzhen Edinburgh Creative Exchange to host an exhibition for Creative December (part of the city’s annual cultural events programme). Edinburgh and Shenzhen are, as of earlier this year, now formally connected as sister cities. A series of cultural and business-focused exchanges have taken place in recent years between the two cities, benefiting businesses from both nations with the facilitation of meetings and support networks as they test new markets or search for manufacturers, suppliers or stockists. 

An international dialogue on culture and craft

The purposes of this exhibition were somewhat different. While we had opportunities to meet with some fascinating businesses in Shenzhen who immediately connected with what we did and vice versa, our reason for being, this exhibition, was more about mutual appreciation and respect for culture. Sharing the exhibition space with three very different local design companies, the exhibition as a whole explored the points of similarity between design and making practices in East and West. 

It was a thought-provoking exploration of the ways in which culture and heritage could be interpreted and expressed in contemporary mediums and contexts, how valuable stories and associations that inspired pieces could be. It was about celebrating two cultures with rich and long legacies of design and making, about moving away from ‘made in China’ ubiquity and to a more neutral territory for design, where it would be respected irrespective of origin, representing thoughtful pieces rendered with quality materials, rather than churned out cheaply in their 1000s. The name of this exhibition was ‘West East, Don’t Ask’. It sounds more catchy in Chinese, we promise. But hopefully, you get the gist. 

‘West East, Don’t Ask’: The Exhibition

The purposes of this exhibition were somewhat different. While we had opportunities to meet with some fascinating businesses in Shenzhen who immediately connected with what we did and vice versa, our reason for being, this exhibition, was more about mutual appreciation and respect for culture. Sharing the exhibition space with three very different local design companies, the exhibition as a whole explored the points of similarity between design and making practices in East and West. 

It was a thought-provoking exploration of the ways in which culture and heritage could be interpreted and expressed in contemporary mediums and contexts, how valuable stories and associations that inspired pieces could be. It was about celebrating two cultures with rich and long legacies of design and making, about moving away from ‘made in China’ ubiquity and to a more neutral territory for design, where it would be respected irrespective of origin, representing thoughtful pieces rendered with quality materials, rather than churned out cheaply in their 1000s. The name of this exhibition was ‘West East, Don’t Ask’. It sounds more catchy in Chinese, we promise. But hopefully, you get the gist. 

Setting up the exhibition: from paper to reality

Setting up the exhibition involved us carrying across the 5 collections we were planning to exhibit in a wide array of suitcases. Taxi drivers shook their heads in dismay, we only just managed to fit them all on two luggage trollies and given that there were only two of us we didn’t sensibly have the option to use a third…We panicked at security and customs in case they would want us to unwrap any of the carefully wrapped and packaged bundles we carried but mercifully everything went remarkably smoothly. Once we arrived at our hotel we were too terrified to open the cases and check the pieces, opting to wait until set-up day to find out if everything had made it in one piece. All but one did. Our lovely cheeky Pearl Dish lost an arm in transit. Devastating as this was, we were able to patch her up temporarily and she is now in the custody of a local ceramic expert who will use traditional Chinese techniques to restore her to full health. 

So, the set-up. A full day hefting around plinths and display cases, perspex covers and vitrines and finally we had an exhibition. Prior to our arrival we had only seen floor plans and slightly pixelated images of the exhibition space. The location had struck us as a little unusual: a library. But it turns out that libraries in China are a little bit different to our perceptions of old buildings and musty dusty volumes. In Shenzhen, there is a major library in each of the 7 city districts. Each building is a modern, glass panelled building of vast proportions, flooded with light. Our hosts assured us that they were cultural hubs, places for those who were – or wanted to appear – intellectual, and catnip for those who liked nothing better than a great photo to add to their social media feeds. 

Seeing the space in real life was transformational. It was light, bright, high ceilinged, neutral, and with the partitions already up as per our directions, already had the bones of the exhibition we wanted to create. Dressing them took a while but the team that the Shenzhen Edinburgh Creative Exchange had assembled to help us were extraordinary. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation with high spirits and delicious fruit tea breaks, the whole process made so much smoother by the fact that our hosts had followed our directives and requests for props/displays to the letter. No substitutes, no misunderstandings, just heaven. Even before we had finished setting up members of the public were in amongst the displays and asking about the pieces.

By the end of the day the directors of the library had made their way down and expressed themselves thrilled with the exhibition. 

The discussion focused on the potential and necessity for both engaging with cultural themes and finding ways to make them commercial. As we were all speaking we realised that we might be phrasing our comments differently but our core meanings and values were very much the same: the authenticity and quality of work; the ‘soul’ of a work that has passion and a story behind it compared to a fake that replicates the design but with no sympathy for the underlying meaning; the importance of independent design; focusing on innovation but also on heritage techniques, honouring the past and recognising the role that our history plays in our present and future; the challenge of finding a means to reconcile these timeframes and create something relevant for today but respectful for yesterday. 

The talk and roundtable appeared to be well-received, certainly, there was a lot of talking after it finished although we couldn’t understand any of it. We will, however, deem it a success, based on the number of people who attended the event who then went on to explore the exhibition. 

Read Part Two to find out what we got up to when we weren’t all hands on deck preparing and launching the exhibition.