Finalist: Sensorial Estates x Hong Kong Pavilion

For the London Design Biennale 2018 theme ‘Emotional States’, the WE-DESIGNS team designed the experience, production, and design-build of the Hong Kong Pavilion.

‘Sensorial Estates’, focuses on the sensory experience of smell and its relationship with nostalgia and memory in the context of everyday life. Exploring the emotionally profound link between smell and time/space, the Hong Kong Pavilion focuses on the exploration of how the sensorial experience of smell heightens nostalgia and memory within our everyday lives and how smells can take us back to physical places and states of being. If visitors have ever passed through Hong Kong, its sensorial estates are sleeping within the memory; the experience of the Pavilion, and its various sensorial estates, immerse the viewers into different emotive states through smell.

The research and development of this installation explore the sensorial representation of Hong Kong through an interactive, sensorial, physical, and tactile installation. It will aim to showcase emblematic cultural icons and experiences and capture local influences through site-specific objects and designs — representing the locality, regionality, and complexity of Hong Kong.

As the visitor moves through the pavilion to view the exhibited works and curated objects, they will interact with the scent experiences created within the space and through a variety of scratch-and-sniff wallpapers. The pavilion installation explores how ‘smell’ triggers our emotional state more intensively.

The spatial design and concept are theoretically inspired by Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, and graphically inspired by Andy Warhol and MC Escher. The final installation and exhibition is designed by the WE-DESIGN team and was commissioned to them through the auspiciousness of the London Design Biennale Art Director Christopher Turner. Funding is made possible in part by the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office (London), and several private donors.

‘These distinctive smells and tactile shapes remain the most instinctual way I continuously experience and develop the nostalgia and memories of my Hong Kong identity, even from the other side of the world. And, I would like to use this installation to share that experience with the public.’

– WE-DESIGNS, Lead Designer

 

PROJECT DETAILS
Design Team:
Lead: Wendy W Fok, Lead
Camila Varon Jaramillo, Lead Producer & Designer
Eugene Ong, Graphic Design
Erin Lee Carman, Social Media
Lillian He, Head of Communications (Project)

Collaborators:
Artistic director: Christopher Turner, V&A Museum, UK

Date of Completion: September 2018

To read more go to Gray Magazine’s site: https://www.graymag.com/post/sneak-peek-wild-card