Themed “Fusion of Design,” the 2020 Shenzhen Design Week has several online exhibitions and mobile phone users can watch them via the Shenzhen Design Week’s WeChat miniapp, which is in both Chinese and English.

‘Shenzhen Design for 40 Years: The Power of the Era’

As China’s first and among the world’s six cities winning the title of UNESCO City of Design, Shenzhen has set up a special exhibition named “Shenzhen Design for 40 Years” in this year’s Design Week. The exhibition aims to review the remarkable achievements of Shenzhen in the field of design in the past 40 years and ponder upon the future design scene in Shenzhen.

Shenzhen Design Expo

The online Shenzhen Design Expo showcases latest products in fashion, life and culture.

Guest of Honor (The Netherlands): Water and City

As the guest country of honor of Shenzhen Design Week, the Netherlands has accumulated rich experience in using design to solve multiple challenges in the water sector. At the online exhibition, the Netherlands presents its practices in the field of water, sharing creative energy with the public with a theme “Water as Leverage for Sustainable Development.” A series of online forums will also be held from Aug. 25 to 28, when 16 Chinese and Dutch water experts will share their vision of humanity’s relationship with water.

‘Leonardo da Vinci and His Cross-century Innovations’

Painting “Lady With an Ermine” is seen in a screenshot of the “Leonardo da Vinci and His Cross-century Innovations” exhibition. Photos from Shenzhen Design Week’s miniapp

Leonardo da Vinci was a scientist full of creativity and exploration. The exhibition is constructed with new technology, centered on Da Vinci’s legendary life and is integrated with Shenzhen as the innovation capital. Viewers can enjoy not only world-famous masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” but also replicas of his precious manuscripts of scientific inventions.

‘Design in the Epidemic’

In the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic, Wuhan received encouragement and support from all over the world and shared numerous moving stories and many engineering miracles in design. The exhibition tells these touching stories in the visual language that designers use to pay the highest tribute to the people who have devoted themselves in the fight against the epidemic.

The exhibition consists of two parts, a poster exhibition featuring the global battle against COVID-19 and a design exhibition which shows the process of engineering miracles of the makeshift hospitals. These cases indicate the significance of design in critical moments.

Shenzhen Global Design Award Serial Events

The Shenzhen Global Design Award was established in 2018 and the competition focuses on designs for sustainability and is held annually as one of the key events of Shenzhen Design Week. The unexpected COVID-19 pandemic brought immeasurable losses to our lives and society. As the pandemic is still raging in many countries and regions, how we cope with it is a common challenge for all of us, and it raised new topics for the global design communities. The organizing committee set up a special edition to include the 2020 — Anti-Coronavirus Product Design Award. Designers around the world are invited to find more solutions to combat this disease.

‘Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao Digital Creative Design Exhibition’

A screenshot of a video showing the “Time of Joy” light show on the facade of the Ruins of St. Paul’s in Macao in 2019. The video is shown in the “Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao Digital Creative Design Exhibition.”

This online exhibition will present smart and digital creative designs produced in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao.

‘Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Design Exhibition’

The Hand Tremor Data Collector is a spoon designed by Shenzhen GYENNO Technologies Co. Ltd. When a person with Parkinson’s disease uses this spoon, it can automatically minimize the effect caused by uncontrollable shaking. The product is shown at the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Design Exhibition.”

With a theme of “Cultural Bay Area • Humanistic Design,” the exhibition invites designers to interpret and present the design ecology and humanities in the Greater Bay Area from visual, space and lifestyle perspectives.

Design Forum: Values of Design

The Design Forum of 2020 Shenzhen Design Week takes “Values of Design” as its theme. Five symposiums with topics of “Designing Social Distancing,” “Designing Museums for the Future,” “Designing Cities,” “Seeking the Invisible” and “The Observer of Commodity Chain” have been livestreamed on the Bilibili app since Aug. 1. Through this forum, the Design Society in Shenzhen hopes to bring awareness and active recognition of the role and potential of design as well as appreciation of a wider realm of creative practices. The final two talks will be held at 7-9 p.m., Aug. 22 and 4-6:30 p.m., Aug. 29.

There are about 20 exhibitions being held at various venues around the city.

Highlighted ones include “Shenzhen Design Award for Young Talents 2019 Excellent Works Exhibition” at the Jupiter Museum of Art in Futian District, “Japanese Graphic Design Exhibition” at Yitian Holiday Plaza in Nanshan District, “Values of Design: China in the Making” at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center in Nanshan District, “Blazing Element” at AN+ Art and Design Center inside PAFC Mall and “Kartell Land: Celebrating 70 Years of Italian Design History” at the iADC Design Museum in Bao’an District.

Details of these events can be found on the Shenzhen Design Week’s WeChat miniapp.