Liqi Chen and Zeyun Chen. Winners at New Horizons Awards 2018

On the afternoon of December 15, 2018, the New Horizons Young Talents Exhibition organised by Gree Real Estate, China Design Centre and Domi Art Design was launched at the Coast Gallery. Jack Qu, Founder of China Design Centre in London; Liping Li, art consultant and curator of Gree; Zhiwen Tang, partner and curator of Duo Mi Art Design; Charlotte and Peter Fiell, the renowned design critics and authors; Grant Baker, Head of Product Design at Nottingham Trent University; Jian Zhang, Professor of Industrial Design College of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts; and other guests attended the opening ceremony. A dialogue with the theme of “the relationship between design and culture” was also held at the Coast Bookstore.

Not only showing the new power of Chinese art and design, the exhibition is also a rare opportunity to present the international talents for the audience from the region. New Horizons highlights the diversity of art and design approaches from artists and designers with different educational and cultural background.

The curators carefully selected the range of works for the exhibition from the entries, and our judging panel, Charlotte and Peter Fiell picked 10 winners for the New Horizons 2018 Award.


Liqi Chen and Zeyun Chen are two winners of the Award at New Horizons 2018
’Qishan - Beiming’, Liqi Chen, Gold Award.
Jewellery designer graduated from China Academy of Art (BA).
Liqi Chen is good at trimming, modifying, processing and collaging materials that are common in life to express the beauty of rhythm. By changing its exterior while creating something new inside, and marrying the traditional with the modern, East with the West, Chen gives new life to the mundane materials. Qishan - Beiming is inspired by phoenixes and other magic birds from an ancient Chinese tale.

‘Redefine Waste’, Zeyun Chen, Excellent Award.
Zeyun obtained her BA(Hons) degree in Jewellery Design and Related Products at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University in 2016 and finished her Master’s Degree in Jewellery Design Gold and Silversmithing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium in 2018. Her works exhibited at Salima Thakker Gallery in Antwerp (2018), and have been showcased over the past few years in London, Paris and Munich Fashion Week.
Zeyun finds that waste and artwork are just a fine line apart, although traditionally there may be a huge difference. By the collection Redefine Waste, she wishes to breakthrough this distinction. In Hong Kong, limited space and infinite waste have been such a difficult case. Every piece in this series is made from mainly household waste (e.g. used clothes, old newspaper, courier boxes, plastic bottles, takeaway food bags). To Zeyun, there are many different ways she can do the transformation with low energy consumption, either by hammering, cutting, riveting, or re-constructing the materials. She had set up a 30-day challenge for herself to transform the waste into jewellery items as many as she can, which are shown in this exhibition.