FEATURE
B
eijing’s premier international celebration of design, Beijing Design Week (BJDW), returns for its sixth year from September 23 to October 7. With so much going on during these 14 days, we decided to catch up with BJDW’s Creative Director Beatrice Leanza to get her take on how the festival has developed since its inception and the designers and architects they are working with for this year’s new core area, Baitasi, in the hutongs west of Xisi.
for and with Beijing. When they asked if I wanted to get involved, I immediately said “YES”!
What inspired you to first get involved with BJDW? I have been in Beijing for over a decade, first as a contemporary art curator at Caochangdi’s Ai Weiweiinitiated China Art Archives and Warehouse, and later as an independent curator via my own studio BAO Atelier. Being a communicator and producer of content, supporting inspiring new visions, I found BJDW, with its wide outreach and possibility for true ‘inner-vation’ and active participation in the city, and its social ecosystem to be a thrilling opportunity to build something unique
Our attempt at supporting and enforcing locally based (Chinese and international) visions of meaning and value is what makes BJDW a project of the city rather than a copy-cat of similar global events.
44
How has BJDW evolved over the past six years? We have gradually become a reference for various stakeholders, something that allows us to work more productively and on a longer term basis with many of them. This enables us to develop programs that have a stronger connection with the city and its inhabitants.
How do you think views of Chinese design and creativity are changing abroad? There is still quite a gap in terms of understanding of how the local scene is changing and behaving compared to the wider global scenario. This is often due to the limited
september 2015