The Dynamics Of Modern Asian Design: Material Culture And Social Agency

Focusing on four themes: the nature and experience of materiality; the social effect of material culture; design, material culture and mediation; and the biography of a design, the edited volume undertakes a material culture approach to studying design in Asian contexts, with an aim to examine the ways in which design as a material form has underscored cultural and social changes in those places. The chapters study the ways that designed objects embody or initialize these changes, examining the biographies of design and materials as well as the experiences of the makers and the users who are witness to those changes. The authors focus on examples of architecture, ceramics, electronics items, fashion, furniture, found objects, interior design, magazines, ornaments, and sacred objects from China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and South Korea to explore the social, cultural and economic resonances and agencies of objects. Some of the themes and concepts examined by the authors include: the tensions between the local and the global, materialization, hybridity, cultural authenticity, modernity, gender identity, human-spatial interaction, and upcycling, to examine the material agencies of designed objects in culture and their roles beyond commodities.