This September, the American Hardwood Export Council launched an ambitious project challenging some of the most innovative designers in China to create something celebrating the relationship between people and wood as a material. Ten designers focused on the resonance of forest inherent in the wood, the very “Echo” of the material, to inform how they created their pieces in Red Oak, Cherry, and Hard Maple. Showcased at the Ho Tung Robert Old Residence art gallery in Jing’an District, Shanghai, “Echoes of the Woods” is the most high-profile AHEC design project yet in China.
Partnering with the curator, Cooollect, AHEC supported the designers to create a wide variety of art pieces, decorations, furniture, and interactive exhibits. The 10 designers featured in “Echoes of the Woods” come from all walks of life and professions. Along with furniture designers, architects, and woodworkers, AHEC collaborated for the first time with an aircraft engineer (Samson Wang) and even a floral designer (Wang Zi) to create a collection of works unlike any other.
AHEC selected three underutilized species from the American hardwood forests – Red Oak, Cherry, and Maple – as the primary materials for a themed creation. In the hardwood forests of the eastern United States, under careful management and innovative processing techniques, a wide variety of temperate hardwood species have grown into a vast resource that is truly sustainable. The “Echoes of the Woods” design exhibition has been inspired by this collaboration between humans and nature.
Flexible, stable and of a consistently high quality, these three hardwoods are abundant in the U.S. forest resource. For this exhibition, we have invited 10 designers and artists from the worlds of product design, interiors, art and architecture to use these three types of wood to explore the connection between humans and nature, life and design. Using their distinctive styles, they provide the audience with diverse and enriched perspectives, presenting aesthetic expressions that are youthful, creative and different from the traditional.
Floral artist Wang Zi combines 12 floral emblems with 12 mirrors to dynamically transform space, allowing audiences to perceive the tangible and abstract forms of nature and self, thus reinterpreting the concept of time. Designer Tang Chengxi integrates natural forms of raw wood with handmade lacquer reflecting on contemporary Eastern thought in a circular and a square space. Zhang Zhongyu traces traditional spatial residential forms of their native Inner Mongolia, imbuing their work with meaningful structures and new cultural connotations. Interior designer Li Man magnifies specific microcosmic plant forms, combining wood with materials like iron in romantic visual expression. Young artist Lin Yanxiong, currently living in London, draws upon personal memories and narrative texts, intertwining them with bodily imagery to create functional sculptural installations. Beyond thematic expression and response, artists and architects are enthusiastic about interacting with viewers through their works on-site. Architect Mu Rong constructs a narrow space accessible only to one person with wood, infusing the enclosed wooden structure with a poetic warmth. Artist Zhang Min uses the three types of wood to create a magnetic assembly of staircase and door forms, playfully minimizing human urban living conditions. Designer Fang Yuesheng seamlessly integrates metal with natural stone spheres and solid wood veneers, creating highly decorative household ornaments. Two of the 10 participants, product designers Zhao Yun and Wang Wanxing, simulate the structural states of natural plant growth and the forms of bamboo leaves with wood, echoing the existential significance of “harmony between man and nature” in Eastern culture. We expect that these 10 distinctly styled pieces will bring each visitor a unique experience connecting with “nature,” and immersing them in a world of wood.
Curator Cooollect notes, “Wood serves as the container and carrier of material expressions throughout the creative process. Each piece radiates a warmth derived from nature. As these works are viewed, understood, and experienced, we believe this subtle, yet pervasive warmth will quietly infiltrate the hearts of viewers. They are greetings and blessings from the distant forests, as well as a passionate response to the challenges of contemporary Eastern sustainability.”
