China Creative City

Source: Picnic

Organized by Da-Tong China Desk Creative Industry

28 Sept 07 14:00-28 Sept 07 15:30 Engine Room Engine Room (view on map)

Interesting and conceptually compelling cases of building "creative cities" in China, debate about the role of the creative industry in the dynamic urbanization in China.

Moderated by: Paul van den Hoven, professor of Utrecht University, dean of the Professional School of the Arts Utrecht

Key Note Speakers:
Huang Rui(China)
Su Tong(China)

Panelists:
Isaac Mao(China)
Cai Ming(China)
Dirk Noordman(Erasmus University, The Netherlands)
P.P.van Besouw(Smalltails, The Netherlands)
Linda Vlassenrood(NAi, the Netherlands)

Huang Rui

Contact
Da-Tong Foundation
China Desk Creative Industry

Liu Yan, Director,
Tel: +31 6-51 601 788
liuyan@wxs.nl

Boudijn H. Uythof. Chairman.
Tel: +31 6-28 255 100
boudijn@uythof.com

More information about Key Note Speakers:

Huang Rui:

Contemporary artist, curator, and the founder of the 798 Dashanzi Art District and 798 Dashanzi Art Festival(DIAF), Huang Rui works in the mediums of painting, photography, installation, and performance art.
Huang was an original member of the groundbreaking, historic Chinese contemporary art group, The Star Group. Since 2003, he has unflinchingly initiated creative arts projects such as Transborder Language: Poetry/Performance Art, Blue Sky Exposure for the DIAF (Dashanzi International Art Festival) within the 798 Dashanzi Art District. Created in 2004, DIAF is a large scale event held organized by Huang Rui’s organization – Thinking Hands along with the various artistic initiatives around 798 art district.
Huang is also prolific in publishing and planning print works including 798, the definitive volume on the history and development of the art district: Beijing 798, reflection on art, architecture and society in China, published by Timezone8, Hong Kong. Huang Rui is an artist whose works avoids easy taxonomy. Over the years his works have taken on many forms. Most of them are characterized by a spirit of rebelliousness and an interest in exploring how the human condition faces up to the impenetrable walls of authority.

Huang Rui is a highly socially engaged artist who incorporates important political and historical references into his works. He has a particular fascination with Chinese political slogans from the 1980s reform era, which, using tidy, controlled brushstrokes, are deliberately enlarged on stark white canvases. Now, as Huang is being forced out of 798 by the landowners, he is leading Beijing's artists to a new creative community in Gaobedian, and looks back at the factory blocks he helped transform.
Located in north east part of Beijing, "798 Dashanzi Art District" is the informal name of a part of Dashanzi in the Chaoyang District of Beijing that houses a thriving artist community, among 50-year old factory buildings of unique Bauhaus architectural style; Now, an active artistic community, a must-see tourist-friendly art district, and often being compared with New York's Greenwich Village or SoHo, it has seen a tremendous growth of new independent arts districts in the recent years besides the famous Factory 798, which includes: Beigao Art District (which include Suojiacun village and Feijiacun village -- Shangri-La art Commune), Huajiadi area of Wangjing residential area (many residing artists), and new-arising wine factory and East End art district etc.

Website: www.diaf.org

Su Tong: Secretary-General of the Pacific Society of China Ocean Culture Commitee, director of the research center of the Association for the Promotion of Olympic Culture, Beijing and Secretary-General of Created in China Industry Alliance.

Su Tong is 40 years old and is the founding executive director of the Beijing-based Creative China Industrial Alliance. This organisation is a non-profit company operating under the umbrella of Asia-Pacific Research Society, itself a think tank associated with the Ministry of Information Industry.

Su Tong’s passion is the slogan “from made in China to created in China”, which has become a brand for his company’s public relations services. These include conference management, web-design, and project management. Su Tong and his organization have been involved in several creative cities campaigns and their designs have found support within the Beijing Municipal government. The Creative China Industrial Alliance has also been engaged on several Beijing Olympics promotions. One of these is an image database called Beijing Explorer -an online photo exhibit of Beijing that allows residents to contribute their impressions of culturally significant sites.

Su Tong points out that creativity is not just about big cities and the middle classes. It needs to be distributed to be people-centred. In 2004 the Creative China Industrial Alliance conducted a creative branding campaign around a wheaten food festival in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in north-west China, a place left behind by globalisation.

The Creative China Industrial Alliance also believe the development of creative industries is an international activity and for this reason have sought to integrate Western and global perspectives and insights. He actively organizes international conferences and have been participating international talks in creativity, creative industry, creative cluster and creative city in Europe and Australia.

Su Tong(right) and Liu Yan(Left), director of Da-Tong China Desk in Westergasfabriek