China International Furniture Fair
Highlights of the 51st CIFF Guangzhou 2023
As the top furniture fair in Asia, the 51st CIFF – China International Furniture Fair offers a practical solution to the significant transformations and emerging difficulties in the worldwide furniture industry. It has established a new business model to creatively design and operate a large-scale international exhibition event.
How to create a multi-dimensional living environment in a limited physical space? What are the elements of original design? What should designers consider when creating? These questions have been answered in the “Contemporary Design Exhibition” at the Spring of Design of China International Furniture Fair CIFF this year, which focused on five main themes.
Part 1: Design for Life
The pursuit of high-quality life is one of the important factors driving the development of design, and conversely, the inspiration of design also provides possibilities for lifestyle changes. As one of the five major sections of “Spring of Design”, “LIVEin” focuses on the multiple connections between design and lifestyle updates. This year’s “LIVEin” has been further refined into four sub-sections: “品联盟” (Brand Union), “文明的旁观者” (Civilized Observer), “春飨” (Spring Feast), and “大家茶馆” (Everyone’s Teahouse). The sub-section with the largest number of brands and exhibition booths “品联盟” (Brand Union), occupies a corner of the exhibition hall. Starting from brand display, to the presentation of brand core strengths and attributes, as well as experiential space display, from point to surface to point, trying to build a three-dimensional structure to further explore the brand under the leadership of Chinese design.
Now, let us enjoy outstanding brands and works together.
U+
Interweaving through each space and wandering through the alleys, we feel the lifestyle and artistic texture of U+.
Outside, there are old benches and jars on the pebble path. The shadows of lights hang on the courtyard walls, and in the depths, there may be sounds of frogs and barking dogs. Inside, as the scene changes, the creation of landscapes between the new work and the classics melts old and new, just like the present talks to the past.
CHI WING LO “AFTER RAIN”
This year’s “Spring of Design” has set the exhibition theme as “More Green and More Friendly”. In the opinion of CHI WING LO, green design is not about planting more trees or greenery, but about having a greater sense of mission. Green design is about having a realization of tradition, an awareness of the present, and a vision for the future, so that we can restore the harmony between people and material, and people and the environment that should exist. CHI WING LO uses “After Rain” to capture the natural landscape, based on a common human vision, depicting a picture full of hope and beauty, and inviting us to think about the meaning of rebirth together.
In this era, everyone should have their own artistic lifestyle that integrates their own attitudes and creates a way of life that pursues a sense of quality and enjoys every detail of life. In the life of Rong She, it is not just about poetry and the distance. Rong She is a way of life and a lifestyle that creates a high-quality living environment for more people.
Rong She applies rational thinking to lifestyle and product design, using the combination of art and life to enhance our aesthetic taste and quality of life, treating product quality with rational thinking, and depicting the ideal life with emotional strokes. The design attitude of Rong She is evident in the Qin Yun long chair, gentleman double bed, and installation art of swirl and water traces.
Wei Mo created an exhibition area with the theme of “civilized bystanders”, constructing a space of “disappearing time”, overlapping time, art, civilization, and technology, exploring the future life form of tranquility and modernity. Here, you will witness the wonderful integration of technology and humanities, a journey about time. The exhibition area reflects the relationship between people and objects, time, space, and geography, seeking deep connections among them. Through the dimension of space and time, wandering between the works, exploring the fusion of art and technology, thereby exploring the relationship between people and things in a spiritual domain.
Different modules and various combinations express the fullness of art’s residence, and reach out to a boundless lifestyle through design. In terms of structural design, classic structural proportions from traditional oriental architecture were used, and a large number of wooden elements were used for embellishment, creating a comfortable, calm, and dignified Chinese style mood, forming a state that is both classic and futuristic, breaking through the dimension of time and space.
When the space and furniture are no longer static entities, but a lively, dynamic force; when furniture no longer merely emphasizes functional satisfaction, but values aesthetics and artistic value, and advocates for the harmonious coexistence of people and space, all these new changes have brought new thoughts to HC28|Duhuili. Therefore, in this exhibition space, a flexible beauty that is feasible, desirable, inhabitable and enjoyable, a realistic virtual beauty between dreams and reality, and a flowing beauty that is common inside and outside are presented.
HC28 is calm, introverted, quiet and elegant, while Duhuili is colorful, enthusiastic, and advocates boldness. The two spaces, one calm and one dynamic, one introverted and one bold, allow viewers to experience an exceptionally rich experience.
WHYGARDEN Home Art Space integrates the spirit of design exploration into daily life, advocates a life attitude of “not being an ordinary person”, and perfectly integrates design with life. In the space, you can fully release yourself and purify and sublimate your soul here. WHYGARDEN Home Art Space is not only a way of life, but also a way of life attitude. It provides not only products and services, but also a way of life.
The brand “Jijian” considers things from a human perspective, using furniture to represent a scene or innovate a new concept of home living. Starting from “contemporary aesthetic thinking”, they take local culture as their thinking foundation, and use modern design language to translate cultural elements, break through the limitations of traditional home design, and create innovative products that can accommodate diverse living scenes, presenting a brand attitude that embraces everything.
Part 2: Irreplicable Creativity
“CREATEin” focuses on YUAN MUSEUM and this year, art galleries and art design brands are also invited to present works spanning different media, such as ceramics, glassware, prints, painting, photography, sculpture, installations, and film.
In “CREATEin”, whether it is YUAN MUSEUM’s “Ceramics and Glass Topic: Contemporary International Ceramic and Glass Art Exhibition” or other themed exhibitions brought by many art galleries and art brands, they all emphasize to varying degrees the creator’s personal character and the life perception that can only be obtained from the creative soil rooted in China. As YUAN MUSEUM describes, what is presented here is not only the objects themselves, but also the characteristics of the times that artists perceive in the current social and cultural environment, as well as the connections they seek in the cracks between the past and the future.
It is better to say that the creators are inviting visitors to experience the immersive experience of living with design and art, rather than presenting their own works to the audience. These experiences come from the internalization of summarizing and perceiving every detail of life. They are a kind of mystery that is difficult to quantify and even difficult to describe accurately in words, hidden in the details of each design, and available for viewers to discover and imagine freely on their own.
Part 3: Co-creation
“Three People Go” exhibition area located in the “DESIGNin” section. With “Observation” as the theme, 9 designers were invited to collaborate with ING+, Lidaxin, and Bojing Art, three lighting brands, to face the core issue in the lighting market, and strive to showcase the industry responsibility and thoughts of young designers through their works.
Sustainable Design
Objects, as a part of home life, sustainable design concepts are also reflected in the consideration of daily use experience. With the theme of “Real Sustainable Design,” in the “Enjoying Sustainable Life” exhibition section, Liangmu named its new product series after life scenes such as “Drinking,” “Eating,” “Resting,” “Tasting,” and “Enjoying,” blending lifestyle with the spirit represented by tableware and utensils such as dishes, tea sets, and wine glasses. Starting from the product user experience and taking life as the material, the exhibition aimed to rethink the sustainability of design.
MODULE+
Against the backdrop of the booming artificial intelligence topic and the increasingly mature 3D printing technology, “DESIGNin” has set up a digital design special exhibition “MODULE+” to allow designers to create and express themselves through the limited form. Independent designer and digital artist Zhang Zhoujie brought the new MeshRare series digital chair, which is a highly personalized, limited-edition digital art furniture generated and upgraded by Zhang Zhoujie’s team algorithm. As a digital asset built in the Web3.0 era, MeshRare is unique in the field of home design.
Part 3: Constant Evolution
Compared to previous years, this Spring of Design has introduced a new section called “VOGUEin”. In the eyes of curator Wen Hao, everyone’s life is composed of themselves and the surrounding environment. The “VOGUEin” section tries to make up for the absence of exploration of self-beauty in previous years. “VOGUEin” consists of “YUE . Ying” from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and “Amusement Park” from One-Stop (Shanghai) Sci-Tech Co., Ltd., bringing together Chinese fashion designers and fashion brands, vividly demonstrating the unique fusion and innovative power of contemporary Chinese fashion trends. In this exhibition, “YUE . Ying” broke the conventional mode of fashion exhibitions by incorporating a large number of digital cyber elements, attempting to break free from the confinement that fashion design must be life-oriented and liberate the imagination of designers and viewers. In addition, on the basis of the furniture exhibition, the gallery’s layout was also integrated into the art gallery cluster consisting of Art Grain Warehouse, Bonham Art Space, Xijian Gallery Sii, O Gallery, and see+ Gallery, broadening the concept and boundaries of the exhibition.
Compared to the previous four sections, which emphasized what we already have, the “THINKin” section focuses on what we can still have. The “University Exhibition” of the “THINKin” section showcases outstanding alumni in the field of home design recommended by the heads of participating universities, reflecting the design educational philosophy and industry promotion role of each school through typical representative works, under the guidance of the theme “Looking Back to the Future”.
In the eyes of curator Wen Hao, good design is “telling different cultural connotations with a universally understood language, and designing beyond time, space, and ethnic groups”. To achieve this goal, it is not only necessary to have designers with basic aesthetic qualities and creative abilities, but also thinkers with interdisciplinary and cross-cultural backgrounds. The fundamental way to cultivate qualified thinkers is to establish an educational system that meets the Chinese design environment, encourage designers to go beyond their comfort zone for cross-disciplinary communication, and introduce more diverse voices to activate industry discussions. These are also the directions that “THINKin” hopes to explore.
Feedbacks From Visitors of CIFF
Well, that’s what we found on this Spring of Design. Also, we collect some feedbacks from visitors of this exhibition, hope it helps you to better understand this exhibition. Here you go:
“Visiting an exhibition is a jailbreak from a mundane life, and sometimes a space needs a flash of inspiration like this to stand out.”
— From a decorator.
“Integrating sustainability into design makes exhibitions more aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking. It also makes my exhibition experience more enjoyable, because humans are connected with the world, and design comes from nature and is used for humans. It allows culture to enter into the daily details of our lives, including eating, drinking, and sleeping.”
–From Jimmy, a bloger.
“What amazed me at this year’s exhibition was the handmade carpets. They were extremely impressive as wall decorations and as applications for room dividers. The use of flexible material and lively designs with no sharp edges created a warm and soft atmosphere.”
–From Sloth66, a designer.
“Most products this year follow Italian minimalism or Wabi-Sabi style, the majority of products are similar except for original brands. Moreover, many brands have set up online catalogs, making it convenient for designers to plan their projects and for customers to select products.”
–From MIAO, a designer.
“The greatest feeling I got from this exhibition is that good works are those that exercise restraint. It’s not about the accumulation of details and materials but the overall and restrained planning.”
–From Sun, a designer.
