“EXCHANGED FORMS – Arbitrary interpretation of Singapore and Kyoto”

Students in Singapore and Kyoto have exchanged each other's cultural images and designed products based on the arbitrary interpretations of them. These products were exhibited on April this year during Milano Design Week and will now be exhibited in KYOTO Design Lab Tokyo Gallery from 19 October to 23 December.

This project is regarded as an experiment where we intentionally induce a spread and a transition of culture, one of the most important process in history, under regulated conditions. In the process of certain cultural elements such as words, tangible objects, and icons spreading from a certain region to another, some information inevitably gets lost and causes misinterpretation. At the same time, the adopted cultural elements evolve into something new by getting combined with the local culture of the destination. We purposely induced this process among Singaporean students and Japanese students.

It would be interesting to see if the audiences in Milan will detect hints of Kyoto culture or those of Singaporean culture.

Organized by KYOTO Design Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology
http://www.d-lab.kit.ac.jp/events/2018/exhibition-exchanged-forms/

Image: © KYOTO Design Lab