Common Reading (2020)
Common Reading is ongoing research on how (Southeast) Asian creatives read. The ongoing study is based on these questions: How do geographical, cultural or personal factors influence our reading material and what does this mean to our design practice in the current geopolitical circumstances?
The results of this survey is featured in the exhibition "Solidarity Spores" curated by Bojana Piškur, Vali Mahlouji, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Sulki and Min, Goto Tetsuya, Kim Seong Hee and Seo Dongjin (under the graphic design section "Common Interests: Conversation of Young East Asian Graphic Designers") in Gwangju, South Korea on 15 May–25 October 2020.
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Common Interests: Conversation of Young East Asian Graphic Designers
Section curated by Sulki and Min / Tetsuya Goto
During the last three decades, graphic design was heralded as a means for global citizens to communicate freely with one another, and thus became closely associated with the rhetoric of globalization. The internet helped render cultural and regional differences less significant, and graphic designers grew more and more accustomed to the idea of their profession’s universality. Recently, however, a generation of East Asian graphic designers are finding themselves in a whole new world, where the exchange of people and ideas beyond national borders falls under suspicion and where demands for barriers intensify.
Under these circumstances, Common Interests imagines a new vision for empathy and collaboration among young East Asian graphic designers. In this section, thirteen designers from nine countries each present their viewpoints on various issues we collectively face. These issues include political freedom, gender equality, climate crisis, cultural identities, technology, popular culture, and social media. If globalization was just a myth and we can no longer be ensconced in it, can we still work together toward a common objective?
Participating Designers
Giang Nguyen, Vietnam
Rikako Nagashima, Japan
Related Department, China
Yui Takada, Japan
Further Reading, Indonesia
Bae Minkee, Korea
Sydney Sie and Zen Yun Zon, Taiwan
So Hashizume, Japan
Gideon-Jamie, Singapore
Huruf, Malaysia
Hong Eunjoo, Korea
Saki Ho, Hong Kong, China
Shin In-ah, Korea