中央美术学院设计学院《当代设计策展》课程介绍
“当代设计策展”是中央美术学院设计学院面向本科生、研究生和博士生开放的专业课程，由宋协伟教授担任课程主持与学术召集人，薛天宠、王乃一担任课程主讲教师。课程在讲授策展历史与理论发展流变的基础上，结合主题讨论与项目实践，研究已存的策展模式，同时探讨不同的策展行为，以及对策展而言什么是“当代性”，如何将其置于一个更广阔的政治、经济及文化语境之内去审视？课程通过介绍跨学科研究方法在策展领域的广泛应用，力求对策展相关议题的切入与讨论方式更加多元异质，从而以不同的视角来拓展当代设计策展的潜力与可能性。
Q&A
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360° - 在您看来，何为设计策展？在设计策展的历史发展中有哪些重要的节点？
避免进入到对策展定义的讨论中，我们更希望抽象地描述它，把设计策展视为一种方法，一场思想行动，或知识生产方式。在设计策展的历史发展中，首先需要明确策展概念的转变：从“展览制作”（exhibition-making），到指称“策展”（curating），再到具有反思性的“策展性”（the curatorial）[1]，这一路的发展可以看出策展如何转向更灵活自由、以协作、参与、互动、表演和话语为中心的自发性实践，以及策展领域不断向外延伸的趋势。其次，专业设计博物馆的蓬勃发展，以及在机构内部形成的一套相对稳定的展览运行机制——从概念发展与叙事结构、展览视觉和空间设计、内容和阐释、展览制作和布展、到评估和批判性反思——越来越多设计展览显露出了清晰的历史分析的同时，探寻了与当下密切相关的迫切议题。
此外，全球范围内策展课程的开设使专业设计策展人群体日益壮大。伦敦的金斯顿大学与伦敦设计博物馆在2001年共同开设的“当代设计策展”硕士课程是第一个专注于设计策展的项目，这一跨学科课程独特创新之处在于其融合了策展的理论与实践。
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360° - 目前国内设计策展是什么样的情况？
在国内开设设计策展课程的院校不多，即便国内专业的设计博物馆逐年增多，但客观来讲，具备专业设计策展思维的策展人很少。他们的工作更多的着眼于设计史断代梳理和设计作品陈列，其中缺少构建作品与时代以及观者的对话关系。
“策展”在中文脉络里是“展览策划”的简称，这很大程度上局限于展览作为一种生产与制作的结果。不可否认在策展实践过程中“实务”的重要性，但今天的策展实践呈现出多样面貌并超越了传统的展览空间，展览也不再作为一种为既定的公众和话语流通服务的单一模式。因此，在具备策展执行能力的同时，对策展模式的重新思考也是很有必要的。
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360° - 请问中央美术学院设计学院设置“当代设计策展”课程的初衷是什么？当中理论的教学与策展实践如何互相配合？
在宋协伟院长的倡导下开设的“当代设计策展”课程，体现了学院发展设计策展教育以及培养专业策展人才的决心。他本人亲自担任学术召集人，在全球范围内邀请知名策展人和设计研究领域的学者进行授课，构建国际性对话场域的同时，致力于策展教育的深化。
在教学内容上，课程通过设立“研究课题”的方式，为以实践为基础的设计策展开发协作式跨学科方法。课程通过对设计策展理论研究与实践模式的探讨，使学生获得有关策展的专业知识与理论储备的同时，对策展方法与策略有相对系统和辩证的认识。随着数字化、信息化与全球化的快速发展，设计需求呈现高度个性化、多元化、情感化、非物质化的倾向。与日具增的设计实践的复杂化形式，挑战博物馆作为收藏、诠释、展出有形之物的场所，并迫使其重新评估设计对象和所在语境之间的关系，以及策展实践的方法、策略与路径的转换。因此，课程在强调“展览作为媒介”的同时，探讨了何种策展模式能够适应不断变化的设计特征？以及策展实践如何应对这种转变的不确定和不稳定状况？新的策展模式的产生，呈现出一种共享的、动态的结构，它是一个各学科交叉参与的过程。
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360° - 设计策展的意义何在？在策展议题的选择上，您如何指导学生思考议题的价值？
策展已经不同于以往传统博物馆中策展人所做之事，策展指涉一个更大的范畴的实践。[2] 当代策展的议题很大程度上追逐于全球普遍关注的议题，如国际政治经济形势、气候变化、资源短缺、移民问题、文化冲突等，越来越多的策展实践以新的观点来透视我们面对的迫切议题。设计策展领域追求“当下”主题的行为，反映了策展人对迫切议题的“及时性”反应。策展人希望冻结世界以了解当下正在发生的事情，不仅通过策展实践，还利用收藏与展示策略来表明其态度。V＆A博物馆于2014年启动的“快速反应收藏”策略很好地证明了这一点，它与传统的经典作品收藏模式截然不同，收藏物品是为了回应全球正在发生、并对设计和制造产生影响的重大时刻。例如，Cody Wilson的3D打印左轮手枪、Primark牛仔裤（由孟加拉首都达卡的工厂制造的，2013年工厂倒塌，造成一千人死亡）、支持英国工党领袖杰里米·科尔宾的Nike T恤、以及在唐納德·特朗普就职典礼游行中象征女权和团结的粉红猫耳朵帽子等。
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360° - 在设计领域，您怎么看待策展与批评之间的关系？如何通过策展引发更多元的讨论？
当代策展作为一种批评方式、一种态度的体现，早在60年代末就已展现了其“批判性”的特征。这不仅导致了一种新的“策展批评”话语的形成——策展人通过策展实践，逐渐成为介入到当代批评范畴的新的话语力量。[3] 同时，还模糊了策展人与批评家身份界限。在中国设计界，一个不容忽视的现像是专业性和学术性设计批评的缺席，批评家更多的作为宣传者进行发声，毫无评论的独特性和客观性可言。借鉴西方设计批评的历史和经验，设计实践与设计产业的发展得益于批评的抗衡。因此，加强设计批评教育的发展，促进设计批评的理论研究和话语系统完善是改善“国内批评的失语”现状的重要动力源。
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360° - 您认为当代设计策展具备哪些可能性？
传统的策展模式在过去二十年中一直受到质疑。策展在本质上无可避免地受制于现存的系统和权力结构，因此越来越多的具有潜在干预性的策展实践，试图颠覆既有的框架。当代设计策展之跨域整合能力为其“逃逸于系统之外”提供了新的视角，在此基础之上，有必要强调“策展性”概念的重要性，进而去铺陈当代设计策展的可能性。正如Paul O’Neill描述“策展性”是一种living-out或是一个认知的过程，这个认知随着实践的发生在不断自我调整和产生变化，而这些变化也会通过不同的路径进入到其他的领域中，因此这个认知的过程具有不可预知性和开放性的特质。[4]
[1] 呂佩怡，《当代策展学如何可能？》，藝術觀點ACT，2015.[2] Curating, Art & Design Magazine, Profile No. 52, 1997.[3] 冯博一，《策展或策展批评，一种新的批评话语》，ARTLINKART.[4] Paul O’Neill. (Ed.), The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s)，The MIT Press, 2012.
Curating Contemporary Design Course Outline
Curating Contemporary Design is a specialized course open to undergraduates, postgraduates and doctoral students in the School of Design, China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). Professor Song Xiewei served as Course Leader and Academic Convener, and Xue Tianchong and Wang Naiyi are Course Lecturers. Based on historical and theoretical parameters of curating, this course combines seminar and live project to interrogate existing curatorial formats, and investigate different curatorial behaviors. Furthermore, it questions what ‘contemporaneity’ means for curating? How to examine it in a broader political, economic and cultural context? By introducing the extensive application of methodology for interdisciplinary research in the field of curating, this course strives to achieve multiple approaches to intervene and interrogate curatorial subjects, so as to develop the potentiality and possibility of curating contemporary design from different perspectives.
Q&A
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360° - From your perspective, what is design curation, and what are the major breakthroughs in the history of design curation?
To avoid entering the debate of the definition of 'design curation’, we prefer to describe it in a more abstract way, to see it as a methodology, an action of thought, or a mode of knowledge production.From the historical transformation (key moments) of curating, firstly, we need to clarify the transition of concepts, from ‘Exhibition-making’ to ‘Curating’, and eventually to the reflective notion of ‘the Curatorial’. [1] It shows how 'curating’ shifts to more flexible and spontaneous practices centred on collaboration, participation, interaction, performativity and discursivity, as well as the notion of curating in the expanded field.Secondly, the flourish of professional design museums and the establishment of a relatively stable curatorial mechanism within institutions (from concept development and narrative structure, visual and spacial design, content and interpretation, production and installation, to evaluation and critical reflection) has led to more and more design exhibitions revealing lucid historical analysis and engaging with the urgent issues of the moment we are living out.
Besides, the increased number of curatorial courses across the world has led to a growing community of professional design curators. For instance, Kingston University and Design Museum, London have jointly launched Curating Contemporary Design MA in 2001, which acted as the first curatorial program focusing on design curation. The innovation of this interdisciplinary course is that it is both research and practice-led in the field of curatorial studies.<2>
360° - What’s the current situation of design curation in China?
There are not many colleges that offer courses of curating contemporary design in China. Even the number of professional Design Museums is increasing year by year, objectively speaking, few curators have been equipped with the professional and practical skills necessary to curate design. They work as an exhibition manager more than a design curator, and their work concern solely the display of design objects and the task of exhibition-making, which lacks the dialogue between the objects and viewers in the contemporary (contemporaneity) social, cultural, and political contexts.
The word ‘curating’ is the abbreviation of ‘exhibition-making’ in the Chinese context, and it is largely limited to the exhibition as a result of curatorial practice. It is undeniable that the importance of ‘practical parameters’ (from conceptual development to the physical realization of an exhibition) in the curatorial process, but the curatorial practice has shown diversified characteristic and transcended traditional museum and gallery spaces. The exhibition no longer serves as the culminating manifestation of curatorial practices. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider curatorial formats when we already have the executive capacity of curating.<3>
360° - What’s the original intention for the School of Design to set up the “Curating Contemporary Design” course? How to combine theoretical and practical parameters?
The course of ‘Curating Contemporary Design’ is led by Professor Song Xiewei, who’s Dean of the School of Design, CAFA. The rationale of setting up the course is, to present the determination to develop curatorial education and cultivate professional curators in an ever-changing era. By inviting prestigious curators and scholars in the field of design worldwide to give lectures, he dedicated to building up the international dialogue and deepening the curatorial education.
In terms of curriculum, through the establishment of the research-oriented project, the course develops collaborative interdisciplinary methods for practice-based research in design curating. By taking a multi-disciplinary approach, bridging the academic and the practical, this course enables students with professional knowledge of curating, while grasping curatorial methodologies and strategies.
Furthermore, with the rapid development of digitization, informatization, and globalization, design requirements are highly personalized, diversified, emotional, and intangible. The increasingly complex forms of design practice challenge the museum as a place to collect, interpret, and exhibit tangible objects, and to force it to re-evaluate the relationship between the design object and its context, as well as methodologies and strategies of curatorial practice. Therefore, while emphasizing ‘exhibition as a medium’, the course explores what kind of curatorial mode would be able to accommodate ever-shifting characteristics of design? How would curatorial praxis respond to the uncertain and unstable condition that characterizes this transformation? The emergence of new curatorial format presents a shared and dynamic structure, which is seen as a process of continuous intersection and participation in various disciplines.
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360° - What is the significance of design curation? How do you instruct students to think about the value of curatorial subject?
Curatorial practice has been different from what curators have done in traditional museums in the past, it refers to infinitely expandable praxis. [2] The curatorial subjects are largely centered around issues of global concern, the endless exhibitions about the international political and economic situation, climate change, resource shortages, immigration issues, or cultural conflicts we have endured in recent years, being a case in point. The pursuit of such “current” themes reflects how curators respond to contemporary exigencies. Curators would like to freeze the world to understand what is going on at that very moment, not only through their curatorial approach, but collection and display strategies to indicate their attitudes. The ‘Rapid-response Collecting’ strategy launched by the V&A Museum in 2014 is a good exemplification. In response to the important global occurrence with significant impact on design and manufacturing, it is entirely different from the traditional collection strategy. For instance, Cody Wilson’s 3D-printed gun Liberator, Primark jeans (made in a factory that collapsed in 2013 and killed 1,000 people in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh), "Nike" T-shirt designed in support of Jeremy Corbyn, and the pink Pussyhat from Washington Women's March.
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360° - In the field of design, what do you think about the relationship between curation and criticism? How to trigger more discussion through curating?
As a manifestation of criticism and an embodiment of attitude, contemporary curating has already demonstrated its ‘critical’ characteristics since the late 1960s. This not only led to the formation of a new ‘curatorial criticism’ discourse - curators have gradually become a new discourse power involved in contemporary criticism through curatorial practice. [3] At the same time, it also blurs the boundaries between curators and critics. In the design field, a phenomenon that cannot be ignored is the absence of professional and academic design criticism in China. Critics are more like propagators, and their comments lack uniqueness and objectivity. Drawing on the history and experience of Western design criticism, the development of design practice and design industry has benefited from the balance of design criticism. Therefore, in order to improve the status quo of ‘absence of domestic criticism’, it is necessary to strengthen the development of design criticism education, promote the theoretical research of design criticism, and improve the discourse system of design criticism.
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360° - What possibilities do you see for curating contemporary design?
The conventional curatorial paradigms have been called into question over the past two decades. Curating itself is inevitably limited to/embedded in the existing systems and power structures. Therefore, an increasing number of curatorial practices act as critical intervention, are trying to subvert the conventional model of curating. The capability of cross-disciplinary integration in the field of curating in design provides a new perspective for “escaping from the existing system”. On this basis, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the notion of ‘the Curatorial’, in order to explore possibilities and potentialities of design curating. As Paul O’Neill describes, ‘the Curatorial’ as a living-out or a way of knowing, which is constantly changing and adjusting itself, and these changes also enter into other fields through various approaches. Therefore, the process of this cognition has unpredictability and open-endedness. [4]
[1] Pei-Yi LU, How Contemporary Curatorship Could be Possible?, Art Critique of Taiwan, 2015.
[2] Curating, Art & Design Magazine, Profile No. 52, 1997.[3] Feng Boyi, Curating or Curatorial Criticism - A New Critical Discourse, ARTLINKART.[4] Paul O’Neill. (Ed.), The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s), The MIT Press, 2012.