^{Lars Nittve, Giovanni Alessi Anghini, Su-Mei Thompson, Alan Lo, Carrie Lam, Marisa Yiu, Bonnie Chan-Wu, Jehan Chu, and Desiree Au at the Design Trust Dinner at Victoria House}

Design Trust, which was launched just this week, will support creative projects that promote design talent, research initiatives and content related to Hong Kong and the Greater Pearl River Delta region. Working across multiple design disciplines ranging from graphics, media, and fashion to the built environment, Design Trust’s aim is to accelerate creative design and development in the areas it supports.

The Research Fellowship Grant (co-issued with M+) partners with world-renowned institutions to offer fellowships that develop emerging careers, build in-depth research, and create innovative work, with Fan Ling – a “speculative designer, educator and urban entrepreneur” – was awarded the fellowship this year.

Fan’s project, Hong Kong As An Archetype: Revising Modernist Ideas of the City and its Urban Forms, was selected out of 40 applicants in the running. His research focuses on an archetypal interpretation of Hong Kong’s modernist urban forms, exploring the complex phenomenon of urbanization, poised between two major concepts of political power (as expressed by Beijing) versus economic power (as represented by Hong Kong); highlighting a critical understanding of the idea of a contemporary Chinese city in its varying incarnations.

Secondly, the Cultural Project Grant, which is subdivided into cultural projects and feature projects with the fellowship, was awarded to MAP Office, comprising the Hong Kong-based artist duo Valerie Portefaix and Laurent Gutierrez.

Titled Hong Kong Is Land, MAP Office will work with eight specific communities locally, exploring their unique culture and economy, and imagining these in the shape of eight artificial islands evenly distributed in the territory. The proposal for this project is to establish an inventory about uneven growth in the city of Hong Kong, with the resulting “islands” as optimistic visions for the future, exploring scenarios that may serve as paradigms for urban planning, housing density, as well as population growth.

The project will travel internationally, first to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and then onto Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna.

Funded privately, the Design Trust’s board of directors comprise of Alan Lo, Desiree Au, Jehan Chu, Joyce Tam, Lyndon Neri, and Marisa Yiu.