Following SD’s recent Annual Show, I gave an interview to 亞洲週刊 (Asia Weekly), a Chinese language international affairs newsweekly. I want to share its original English version here.
亞洲週刊: What do you want to achieve with the [Annual Show]?
Tom: My own educational desire is to be superfluous to our students once their time with us comes to its end. As a teacher I therefore do not want to achieve anything at this point – except maybe for giving our students a ritual of closure and a little publicity that they may find useful.
亞洲週刊: Can you tell us about the feedback you get from these exhibitions?
Tom: We get all kinds of feedback from all kinds of people. Some say the work shown is inconsistent and not what one would expect. This is my favorite kind of feedback. Some say the work is similarly mature as design from places known for good design. This kind of feedback scares me. I try my best to avoid giving this kind of impression.
亞洲週刊: Do you get a lot of students wanting to study Industrial Design? What is the talent pool like here?
Tom: Each year we receive over 300 applications from Hong Kong, Mainland China and all over the world for around 30 positions on our BA(Hons) program. In our intake admission we try to strike a balance between candidates with strong design portfolios, strong academic achievements and strong inter-cultural awareness.
亞洲週刊: How does the external environment of Hong Kong influence the growth of your design school?
Tom: Many people in the design field are intrigued by the cultural richness of Hong Kong and by its proximity to the manufacturing industries in China.
亞洲週刊: Where do you position Hong Kong in the world of industrial design? Countries like Japan, Germany, Italy and others are well known for their design – do you think Hong Kong should be ranked with them or is there a gap in perception here?
Tom: How can you compare and rank something that can only be assessed subjectively and by multidimensional metrics? I have no interest in the kinds of charts and maps you want me to point at. I hope what we are doing here will never be known for x or y in the way that German design came to be known for this and Italian design came to be known for that. When you see an ongoing creative practice that is recognized as coherent, then its underlying paradigms are invisible and unspeakable. Once they become visible and can be put into words, they are obsolete. Is today’s Italian design really more beautiful and is the quality of today’s German design really superior to design coming from other places? Or are these stereotypes that are easy to talk and to write about?
亞洲週刊: Industrial Design in Hong Kong is not particularly well known throughout the world. Is there anything now being done to change this perception? Is the SAR Government doing anything to help in this regard?
Tom: This government, as other ones, promotes local design and supports the standing of the local design professions and industries through various initiatives. But what do you mean by help? You see, when A helps B, then B is held in its place by A; whereas when A and B listen to one another and do things together, both will learn and develop. As far as I see, designing is a self-governing process that does not need external governance. Governance, however, is a process that affects lives of many people, which always needs fresh thinking. In this way, I am more interested in what governments take from us than in what they give to us.
