FUTURE OFDESIGN
Students show off what they know with annual graduation exhibitions
By Luo Yunzhou
With graduation season right around the corner, college students are busy working on their dissertations or graduation projects. When it comes to art students, graduation season is an excellent opportunity for them to show off both their talent and what they have learned.
Many exhibitions featuring students’ graduation designs have been held throughout China recently, providing visitors a new window to learn more about how art students see their chosen profession.
Tsinghua University
One of the most impressive exhibitions is being held at the Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts and Design – the 2018 Postgraduate Work Exhibition.
Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to leave messages conveying their feelings about the art on display in notebooks placed next to the displays. Comments range from pure appreciation – “that is brilliant! I am sure you will have a bright future!” – to more personal messages such as: “Dear son, I have browsed your graduation work. It is really great!”
Entering the main hall of the gallery, exhibitions are displayed in different rooms and include environmental art, visual communication design, industrial art, ceramic art, information art, sculpture and handicrafts.
The first hall is the environmental art exhibition. Displaying models of designers’ ideal environments, the hall is filled with miniature rural villages, cities and expressways.
One of the more eyecatching designs that caught the attention of a
number of visitors is of a tourist resort in Huitengxile, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The model focuses on the landform of the area such as streams and hills and demonstrates how designers must adjust their architecture to fit local conditions.
The displays in the other halls also drew in visitors, especially sculptures that mimicked the traditional art styles found in Beijing and Shanghai. For instance, a red door carved with floral patterns and Chinese calligraphy on one side and with an archaic bus station board was surrounded by visitors.
The rest of the exhibition is at the Tsinghua University Art Museum.
Encompassing the second and third floors, the exhibition features many creative elements with each corner following its own theme.
One highlight was a work featuring Japanese design. One wall of the work looked like something you would see in a typical Japanese restaurant, while elegant pottery vessels were displayed on a table. According to the introduction to the work, the vessels were original creative products decorated with Chinese and Japanese elements. For instance, one dark blue vase is decorated with light blue cranes and peaches, which in China are symbols of longevity.
Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts
Art colleges in East China’s Shanghai are also worth noticing, especially the graduation exhibition held at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts from May 8-11.
The excellent artworks were not only displayed inside the campus, but also at the Liu Haisu Art Museum, and students were on hand to answer any questions that visitors may have.
Covering both graduate and postgraduate works, the exhibition was an excellent opportunity for students to explain how designs can be used in today’s society, the organizers said.
“Shanghai is the center of modern art and culture,” Wang Dawei, the director of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Art, said at the opening ceremony.
“We are providing a platform for students to show their talents to the public, and I am looking forward to seeing that more great works and achievements can be done by our students.”