Contemporary Design of Spring Festival

Art Exhibition on Spring Festival – Chinese New Year: Culture and Design

The virtual exhibition examines Chinese New Year traditions of clothing, food, housing and transportation from perspectives of chronological and regional variations, rituals, utensils, entertainment and gifts, presenting fresh visual designs of Chinese New Year custom. It is aimed at letting the younger generation understand beyond traditional Chinese New Year. The exhibition invites five art colleges in China for cooperation to re-explore, creatively transform and innovatively develop cultural elements. The new exploration of visual image of contemporary Chinese New Year is re-design with modern methods, applied to enrich beautiful life in this era. The presented Chinese New Year is coined with contemporary values, cultural characteristics and reshaping potential.

Exhibition On Display at Zhejiang Art Museum

Due to the pandemic, this exhibition cannot visit Sweden. Fortunately, the live exhibition in Zhejiang Art Museum could still be overviewed in the short video as prelude of the online exhibition. This virtual exhibition covers new designs of New Year Pictures, Door Gods, New Year Posters, Fu Character, Red Envelope, Folk Toys and other design works of design concepts with renewing visualexperience. Audience could also watch a series of short videos about Chinese New Year, which include animations in forms of paper-cut, finger puppet and situational cosplay, exhibiting innovative interpretations from young people of Chinese New Year culture and their wonderful creativity.

12 Zodiac Animals

Exhibition Entrance：

https://wx.zjam.org.cn/Interact/ZGN/index_en.html

Happy New Year of the Ox: Virtual Exhibition of Chinese Zodiac Design

The Chinese zodiac, also known as “Shengxiao” or “Shuxiang”, is a repeating cycle of twelve years counted by the calendar system of “Dizhi” (Earthly Branches), with each year being represented by an animal. The zodiac animals are Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Ancient Chinese people measured the length of a year with a cycle of twelve full moons, and created ten “Tiangan” (Heavenly Stems) and twelve “Dizhi” (Earthly Branches) to make combinations representing a sexagenary cycle. The number twelve is thus regarded as the governing number of the universe, corresponding to twelve zodiac animals. This has led to an important folk culture of “animal year” with a unique conceptual interpretation system, which is widely present in the life of the Chinese people from ancient times to the present.

Since 2015, the “Global Zodiac Design Competition” sponsored by the city of Beijing has been selecting and displaying the works of many teachers and students of design schools as well as designers from around the world. The competition has promoted the innovative development and transformation of this classic cultural tradition, from which many excellent works have emerged. This exhibition brings together outstanding contemporary zodiac artworks including zodiac-themed bronze mirrors, figurines, murals, paintings, coins, seals, paper cuttings and stamps. Artworks from 11 countries are also displayed.

As we ring out the old year and ring in the new year in this season of vitality, let us bid farewell to the Rat and say hello to the Ox with “Happy New Year of the Ox: Virtual Exhibition of Chinese Zodiac Design”. We wish you all the best in the New Year of the Ox!

Exhibition Entrance:

https://show.chinaculture.org/shengxiaosheji/index.html