Welcome to the Grand Opening of ZONE, the 2020 Golden Pin Design Award Winners’ Exhibition

Resetting our focus on new norms in creative design is the theme at the center of ZONE, the exhibition set for November 24 at the Taiwan Design Museum.

Taipei, Taiwan – The 2020 Golden Pin Design Award Winners’ Exhibition is set to hold its grand opening at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park’s Taiwan Design Museum on November 24. Titled ZONE, this year’s exhibition offers an innovative, immersive experience that transports the audience into a world of brilliant ideas.

The exhibition will last until February 28, 2021 and will showcase 130 winning entries from the Golden Pin Design Award and Golden Pin Concept Design Award that have been awarded the (Concept) Design Mark.

Kicking off the exhibition was a pre-opening press conference held on 23th November. Among the many distinguished guests in attendance were Taiwan’s IDB Director-General Jang-Hwa Leu and Taiwan Design Research Institute President Chi-Yi Chang. Also present were the executive producer of this year’s Golden Pin Design Award ceremony – Bito’s Creative Director Keng-Ming Liu – as well as the curating team for the exhibition Sanyo & Sanin.

Representatives of select exhibitors attended the conference to share the concepts and stories behind their designs; these included Acer Inc., AsusTek Computer Inc., DARE Bikes, Taiwan Power Company, SimpleInfo Design, the General Association of Chinese Culture, the Project On Museum (POM), InFormat Design Curating, Whitelight Motion Studio, Mistroom Design, the One-Forty Migrant Worker Education and Culture Association, Toraton Creative Studio Co., and Moodmu Lighting etc.

This year’s Golden Pin Design Awards ceremony will be helmed once again by Bito, while the visuals for the winners’ exhibition were designed by Hao Zhaung, who hails from the emerging curating company Sanyo & Sanin, the executive curator for the exhibition. This marks the first time that the exhibition has a separate theme – ZONE – from the awards ceremony, which was titled 2020. With ZONE, the curating team hopes to start a dialogue that spurs new and innovative perspectives. 

ZONE has a dual meaning: It can refer the physical zone, and also refers to the psychological flow state (as in “in the zone”) and the incredible level of creativity that emerges when we give something our full attention and lose ourselves in doing what we love. This year, due to the global impact of the COVID-19, spatial and social relations have been changed in many aspects.

Yet, it is also the opportunity that allows us to separate ourselves from a highly collectivized society for a deeper introspection into our lives. The curating team said that this exhibition is also an invitation, hoping everyone to refocus and accumulate energy to create new daily lives.

Curious to learn more on the Golden Pin Design Award finalists?

To communicate the concept of ZONE, the key visual shows the rhythmic dilation and contraction of a pupil that is completely absorbed in the present. Starting from a single point and extending sideways into a line before eventually expanding outwards into a surface, the fundamental elements of the design combine to present a visual that responds to its environment, expanding in brightness and contracting in the dark. The visual symbolizes the periods of time in between creative bursts during which the imagination rests and recharges. 

At the entrance, visitors are greeted with large panels of white lights, but as they follow the well laid-out paths into the dimly-lit exhibition hall, their own pupils will dilate as they experience the change in lighting. Exhibits are placed behind walls on either side of the walkway and must be viewed through a cutout made in accordance with the size and nature of each item on display.

In this way, visitors must “focus” in order to see the exhibits, which are neatly arranged into showrooms based on the respective award categories in which they were entered. This provides a richer context for the exhibits and allows visitors to appreciate the designers’ quest for excellence in their respective fields.

This year’s exhibition will showcase 130 Golden Pin Design Mark and Golden Pin Concept Design Mark-winning entries from Taiwan, mainland China, the United States, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Poland, Switzerland, Thailand, and India. Though faced with fierce competition, several entries from Taiwan stood out for their innovative design, including Design Mark winner AsusTek’s game-changing ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, a dual-screen laptop with blazing performance built for gamers and designers.

Another Taiwanese standout is Luxgen’s URX 5+1 SUV, which features a universal design, a wide range of accessibility features, and the patented Quick Lock system for securing a wheelchair so that passengers with disabilities can travel with ease. As for international entries, Thai design studio Green Dot Blue received praise for its ARTWORK TOMii, a backpack made entirely of recycled felt sourced from used plastic bottles. All of its trappings are made of eco-friendly materials as well, making the backpack fully recyclable while contributing to environmental sustainability.

The 2020 Golden Pin Design Exhibition – ZONE kicks off on November 24, 2020 and will conclude on February 28, 2021. The public is invited to turn their focus once again to the nature of design and read between the lines of the wonderful works that are the fruits of the designers’ constant thoughts, labor, and trial. Join us at the Taipei Design Museum as we get in the ZONE to celebrate design and the ways in which it drives society forward.

The winners of the Best Design and the Special Annual Awards will be revealed during the ceremony on December 11, which will be live-streamed on the official Facebook page and YouTube channel in both Mandarin and English (starts from 18:00 GMT+8).  For the latest news on the Golden Pin Design Award, please visit the official website and follow us on social media.

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