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Supporting Harmony
This Congress came together with the aid of a vast number of government,
design and educational organizations. This was made perfectly clear by
the titles of the five individuals who delivered formal greetings to
the huge audience of the first event: Yoshio Inden, Deputy Mayor, City
of Nagoya, who is also the president of International Design Center NAGOYA
(IdcN); Makoto Nakajima, standing in for Minister Nakagawa of the Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry; Robert Peters, President of ICOGRADA;
Aichi Prefecture Governor Masaaki Kanda and Nagoya Mayor Takehisa Matsubara.
Among the other representatives of supporters joining these men on stage
were Shobu Kudo, of the Nagoya Chamber of Commerce and Industries; Yoshio
Kubo of the Department of Industry and Labor, Aichi Prefectural Government;
Shintaro Oishi of the Japan Design Foundation; and Hikoharu Kure, president
of the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization. All reminded the
audience that Nagoya has been associated formally with design for a dozen
years, but as the center of a prefecture that has led Japan in manufacturing
for 26 years, has always depended on design. Both Inden and Peters noted that facing, elucidating and helping solve global
issues from 9-11 to SARS, overpopulation to environmental pollution,
are both the challenges and the motivation for the essence of design:
contributing to the understanding among people everywhere. Enlivening
the verbal greetings were visual presentations of Nagoya's rich heritage
and nature and the history of ICOGRADA, highlighting themes we will cover
here during these next few days: ethical guidelines, design education,
tolerance and harmony. (MH)
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A Shared Metaphor of Asian Designs
Kohei Sugiura, who himself looked as if he stepped out of another era,
kicked off the ICOGRADA Congress with a spiritual-themed and exquisitely
illustrated presentation on a mutual aspect of Asian culture. With words
like "rebirth", "cosmic mountain", "tree of life" and "reverberation"
Sugiura shared a framework which used as an example ancient Asian drums:
the Pole drum, of ancient Chinese and Korean origin and the Flame drum
from Japan. Using this metaphor Sugiura asked the audience to ponder
the questions of what constitutes and makes quality information. Features
of the drum were thoroughly outlined in order to present a context in
which to later analyse the questions posed during the presentation, most
importantly the significance of the drum beat being quite different from
the concept of drumming in music today. Both drums have striking auditory
and visual features which explain the deep layers of information. Using
colour, symbols sound and form the history of the cosmos is explained
aurally and visually. In answering the question "What is design?" Suguiura
states that as designers in a global, cyber culture in order to design
quality information experiences, we need to "weave information" based
on clues of past history, human behaviour and all its cultural symbols.@(RZ)
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Writer:Kosuke Ikehata/Norimitsu Korekata/Junko Sakamoto/Nobuko Shimuta/Naoko Hasegawa/Osamu Hisanaga/Sakurako Muto/Naho Yoshioka/Maggie Hohle/Nicole Rechia/Trysh Wahlig/Gitte Waldman/Robert Zolna
Photographer:Yoshimitsu Asai/Yasuhiko Katsuta/Fumihiko Mizutani |
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