Suzhou Arts and Culture Festival

Description

“苏州与吉隆坡之光”是一场为期五天的跨文化设计与制作工作坊，汇聚来自西交利物浦大学与马来西亚UCSI大学的学生，通过城市探索、文化分享、设计实验与数字制作，共同完成一件以“光”为媒介的装置作品。工作坊以文化交流与共同创作为核心，学生走访苏州的历史与当代空间，从园林、建筑、纹样、工艺、材料与日常生活中提取视觉与空间线索。同时，来自马来西亚的学生通过分享环节介绍马来西亚的文化、设计传统与生活经验，让来自苏州与吉隆坡的文化记忆、图案语言与设计方法在交流中彼此交织。

在随后的设计与制作阶段，学生进入西交利物浦大学的制作实验室，通过草图、数字建模、材料测试、激光切割、原型制作与装配，将两地的观察、文化元素与共同经验转化为一件光影装置。最终作品并非对任何单一文化的直接再现，而是五天共同学习、交流和制作过程中形成的融合表达。光在其中既是设计材料，也是交流、连接与共享经验的象征。作品最终于苏州艺术文化节呈现，记录学生从相遇、观察与对话，到共同设计与制作的全过程。

The Glow from Suzhou + Kuala Lumpur is a five-day cross-cultural design and fabrication workshop bringing together students from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and UCSI University, Malaysia. Through visits across Suzhou, cultural sharing, design experimentation, and hands-on fabrication, students explore how light can become a medium for cultural exchange and collective making.

Throughout the workshop, participants encounter Suzhou’s historic and contemporary environments, observing its gardens, architecture, patterns, craft traditions, materials, and everyday spatial experiences. Malaysian students also bring elements of Malaysian culture, visual traditions, design references, and lived experiences into a series of sharing sessions, allowing ideas from Suzhou and Kuala Lumpur to meet, overlap, and evolve through dialogue.

The workshop then moves into XJTLU’s fabrication facilities, where students translate these shared observations into a collective light installation through sketching, digital modelling, material testing, laser cutting, prototyping, and assembly. Rather than representing either culture independently, the final work emerges from the interaction between them. Light becomes both a material and a metaphor for exchange, connection, and shared experience. Presented as part of the Suzhou Arts and Culture Festival, the installation captures the students’ five-day journey of experiencing, sharing, designing, and making together.

Period	30 Aug 2026 → 3 Sept 2026
Event type	Other
Location	Suzhou, ChinaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International