Cultural and Creative Industries Talk: "Madame Mao’s Dowry" and Transformations of Shanghai's CCI scene

2024-10-25

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

IAG28

SoFTA@xjtlu.edu.cn

Details

  • Theme: Cultural Adventures and Creative Encounters: "Madame Mao’s Dowry" and Transformations of Shanghai's CCI scene
  • Time: 11:00-12:30
  • Date: 25 October 2024 (Friday)
  • Venue: IAG28
  • Language: English

Abstract

In this lecture, we welcome Dr Linda Johnson, a founder and curator of Madame Mao’s Dowry (MMD) in Shanghai, to reflect on the changes she witnessed in approaching culture and creativity in China engaging with both objects and the people passing through MMD since its establishment.

In 2010, Shanghai became the UNESCO Creative City of Design, but it still lacks a Design Museum engaging Chinese and international audiences with rich and diverse legacies of design in China. Meanwhile, launched in 2000 as a creative space focused on Modern Chinese design, MMD harvested, displayed and sold Mao Era design in many of its emanations whilst fostering the creative community by offering a space for the display of emerging Shanghai designers.

The concept of this space was to offer a story of a continuous, positive and enduring aesthetic history from Imperial China to the contemporary era in the context of a rapidly changing city. Since described as ‘a gift to the city’, MMD was a space of social interaction and encouraged an understanding and appreciation of significant cultural and creative production that populated everyday life but lacked recognition. Over the years, Dr Linda Johnson has collaborated with many famous designers and institutions from China and abroad, including John Galliano, V&A (for their China Design Now Exhibition in Spring 2008), and the British High Street fashion label Top Shop.

Through a combined format of a lecture, discussion moderated by Dr Karolina Pawlik and Q&A open to the audience, this talk seeks to trigger reflection on design histories in China, social entrepreneurship, cross-cultural communication in creative practice and business, changing trends in vintage and Red Culture, and possibilities to promote Chinese culture through unique approaches and narratives.

Speaker

Dr Linda Johnson

founder and curator of Madame Mao’s Dowry (MMD) in Shanghai

 

 

 

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