Unbounded by East or West—My Art and Design Journey – A Book Talk by Dazhou Wang
February 10 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Speaker: Dazhou Wang, Honorary President and Professor, School of Design, East China Normal University
Discussant: Dake Zhu, Professor Emeritus, College of Humanities, Tongji University
Moderator: Qin Gao, Professor and Director of China Center for Social Policy, Columbia University School of Social Work
In his new book, Chinese-American artist Dazhou Wang recounts his decades-long journey, tracing his experiences from youth in China to his education, life, and artistic creations after moving to the United States in the 1980s. As both a personal biography and a motivational guide for studying abroad, the book records how the artist, born in Shanghai, realized his dreams in a foreign land through hard work and perseverance. Wang’s book not only holds significant reference value for scholars in the field of art but also provides valuable insights for researchers of cross-cultural art exchange and study abroad education.
Speakers’ Bios:
Dazhou Wang, originally a Professor at the Shanghai University College of Fine Arts, left China in 1985 for the United States to pursue graduate studies in the fine arts and design. He received both a Masters of Fine Arts from the State University of New York University Center at Albany and a Masters of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. After serving as Tianjin Science and Technology University’s Dean of Art and Design, he was invited by East China Normal University in 2003 to establish the School of Art and Design at East China Normal University where he was appointed Founding Dean and is now a lifetime honorary president and professor at the School of Design East China Normal University.
Dazhou Wang’s works have been exhibited and collected in museums and art galleries in China, the U.S., Japan, and across other countries. His art has frequently been covered by major media and featured in publications such as Contemporary Chinese Art and Chinese Art. In 2012, the Shanghai Art Museum hosted the “Wang Dazhou Bio-Art Exhibition,” introducing his innovative aesthetic concept of bio-art to China. His bio-artworks are collected by over ten prestigious universities in the United States, including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. His books Creative Design Process, Style and Trends, and Elastic Thinking in Design have been included in the National Publishing Culture Innovation Project.
Dake Zhu is a professor emeritus of the College of Humanities at Tongji University in Shanghai, where he was also director of the Institute of Cultural Criticism and head of the Department of Cultural Industry. He has also been a visiting professor at several Chinese universities. A prominent cultural scholar and critic, Zhu has been honored by Phoenix Life magazine as one of the fifty Chinese who have influenced the world in the 21st century. Currently, he devotes himself mainly to the study of cultural and mythological history and to writing novels.
NOTE: This talk will be in Chinese Mandarin.
This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by China Center for Social Policy.
Registration:
