Why did I go to HuNan University, School of Design, Changsha, China?
As Professor for Industrial Design I got in contact Prof. Ming Zhong. He is professor at the HuNan University in fields of Product Design. He served as visiting professor for one semester at „Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste“ Stuttgart. There lecturing in fields of Exhibition Design. He studied in Germany and started his professional career in Germany as well. Talking with him about design is easy understanding. Only he mentioned several times the differences in ways of living and working from China to Germany. We agreed to keep in touch and to develop the activities of our programs. And since he is back to Changsha I felt it is my turn. I participated in a workshop he held around march 2018.

Being there - Changsha with its 7 million inhabitants is something to deal with. In chinese scale more moderate sized it meant a feeling of compression to me on the one hand. On the other I felt a stretch due to the ancient sophisticated culture and the acceleration by digitalized processes and high tech applications. That became an intensive experience not for the lecturing in itself but for the lifestyle I shared. This is a point hard to explain: There have been many talks to students and fellow colleagues all in a comparative style. That is interesting and we get an understanding of different structures, preferences and heritages. But the truly inspiring part is to really share that living, the knowledge on a subtle level, its inexpressible logic and fresh flavoured thoughts. I appreciated that very much.

The workshop: The students were asked to develop an exhibition. Based on 80qm they where free to set up the context, which could be in a museum, a point of sales, faires, a re-creational area, etc… Besides considerations of safety and guidance the main focus was the lighting concept, titled „Light + Branding, Light + Interaction, Light + Space“ This should lead to better information and narrative structures. 

I gave input in fields of 3D-print techniques which go along with small series, individualized designs and fresh styles based on the addditive manufacturing.