Woo: May I invite the next speaker, Prof. King Siu.

KING : You ask me questions?

Woo: I’ll ask you questions, but you can talk without being asked. I understand that you are responsible for the curriculum. Just now that student has asked already- what does Hong Kong represent? Can you tell us your background? Maybe some participants don’t know your background.

King: I teach design in the School of Design in Hong Kong Polytechnic University. I have been running a course called Art & Design Education. It has been in operation for many years.
Initially, the course was for in-service teachers. Later on, more and more designers and people who seem to be unrelated to design have taken the course, for example, social workers.
Gradually my direction for teaching has changed. For the next academic year, I’m organizing another programme, namely Social Innovation Design. In September next year, it will start if all goes well.

Woo: Is it an undergraduate programme? Master’s or Undergraduate programme?
King: Yes, an undergraduate programme. A four-year programme. To you, the tradition is –

Woo: You build courses, and I know that you went to Shamshuipo and many other old districts to look for old craftsmen and artisans. So why do you bring these elements into your design courses?

King: Actually, I have prepared some lines of thought originally. I thought participants would be students.
I’ll share my personal experience. I started out being a student of painting and drawing. In university, I majored in painting and drawing. Why do I like painting and drawing?
Because on a white canvas, I can put whatever shapes and colours I like on it, to make up different composition. But in the process, I discovered that whatever I do is bound by the white frame, and gradually I didn’t know what to put in it.
Then I started to think, why not make sculptures. If I drew a picture, the audiences could only look at the picture. It’s a medium, with a two-dimensional flat surface, for expressing meanings. Later on, I tried to make sculptures. I seemed to be able to get a little bit more sense of satisfaction from it, because sculptures are creative works in three dimensions.
When the audiences look at the three-dimensional sculpture, their observation is also three-dimensional. The experience is a bit richer. But as I worked on sculptures, I still found it very limiting.
And then I thought, why not create within a space. That’s why I moved into installations, from sculptures to installations. I came across some problems in creating installations. What can I put in the space to make it meaningful? What are some meaningful things to place in the space? In the process, I realized that if I have to put something into a certain space to create meanings, this is actually what museums are already doing. Museums organize different exhibits. Displaying exhibits is already an installation. A kind of framework of knowledge is set up. The way they organize and place things will lead to different knowledge and content. I discovered that organizing things in a meaningful way and giving them a framework within a square frame is actually curatorship in Museology.
That is about curating contents and curating knowledge.
Then when I came back, I thought a city is actually a museum.
In this city, what kind of knowledge are we pursuing? How do we understand the knowledge contained in a city? How we organize or structure something represents a way to view the city. To answer your question. I organized a community museum project, and I worked with the old craftsmen, because I wanted to discover the framework for knowledge in the city. Before I identified the framework, I just chatted randomly with the craftsmen.I gathered information about their personal history, about their history with their craft.
From a museum’s perspective, I exhibited the information that I've collected. In an exhibition hall, I installed the knowledge and the information that I've collected, and actually, that is already education. I often bring these ideas into the assignments that I give the students. Very often I ask students to go into the city to find the knowledge that is being abandoned.
To a certain extent, that is my experimentation in education.
But if we keep on doing experiments, but cannot organize a framework, then the information is very fragmented.

Woo: For the new four-year programme, what are you going to teach? Can you share with us some specifics? If students take the Social Innovation Design programme, what will they learn?

King: This is not a four-year programme. It is a senior place.

Woo: Another new term?

King: After finishing the associated degree programme, they will take a 2-year top-up programme towards an undergraduate degree.

Woo: So, what will they learn?

King: Associate degree graduates can apply. It sounds like I’m doing a promotion.

Woo: There’s no problem in promoting good things.

King: When the associate degree graduates apply, we’d like to select students from different background, not only designers but also social workers, teachers, artists, students who study business, science and technology and so on. If they have imaginations in the areas of social design, we will be flexible in admission. Time’s up?

Woo: You still have five minutes, that should be enough.

King: We are going for open enrolment. As they have taken the associate degree programme, I believe that they have already got some foundation in different areas. Perhaps not, but if yes, I hope they will cooperate with one another in projects.

Woo: What projects will there be?

King: We will go out with the students. We will see what observations they have on design and on imagination of the modern lifestyle. Then from those imaginations, they can begin to do some designs. Let me give you an example.
Recently in Hong Kong, it’s quite popular to talk about the co-existence of the city and rural areas. It sounds very avant-garde now, but in fact, it’s something vintage. So how can the urban and rural areas co-exist? Well this may be a new development. There may be changes in logistics. We may need more farmers. But we also need different planners to plan different eco-systems and living systems. From these angles, well if we do have this kind of imagination, then we may come up with designs based on these matters. Say for example, if you don’t understand this concept about co-existence and the joint survival of the urban and rural areas, perhaps you can think of a communication design to explain clearly what this idea is all about.
A few days ago, at BOBW, I heard Christine Loh say that they have built T Park, so waste in Hong Kong can be converted into energy. Excreta. A project aimed at converting excreta into energy. Now we do have such facilities, and this is the first project. But how do we handle these ideas, such as the recycling of wastes, plastic bags and food wastes, how can we promote and spread these ideas? We actually need communication designers to help design supporting measures and facilities, instead of having only the Government Information Services (GIS) to do the publicity. We need community participation, and then designers can participate in different communities to work out communication designs or campaigns. These campaigns should not be top-down, and the grassroots can be mobilized to cooperate.
So, in the area of social design, emphasis is placed on participatory design or co-creation. Through my course, I hope to develop these new cooperation models and ideas with designers or students from different sectors.

Woo: You mean that there are social conditions that are already existed, and you want to rejuvenate them?

King: Not only rejuvenating them, we want to integrate and connect the resources. Because complete education should not be compartmentalized into different disciplines. In that case, people know only one area or one discipline. I think people should work together. But how do we achieve that?
Actually, this is an experiment. Since the university is giving me two years to carry out this experiment, I’d like to try and see if it can be done in a few years.

Woo: How many students would you take in every year?

King: Right now, there are only 24 students.

Woo: Then next year, you will admit 24 students for two years?

King: In the year after next year, if the response is good, perhaps we would take in 30 students.

Woo: Ok, anything that you would like to add?

King: Perhaps I will supplement in the discussion session later on.

Woo: OK. Thank you, King