Beatrice Lanza
M001693
Italy / Art Writer and Independent Researcher
A creative director with fifteen years’ experience, Beatrice has lived in Beijing since 2002 and grown into a reference figure in the contemporary design and arts fields thank to her unique insight in the Chinese creative scene and its surrounding Asian regionalism.
She served as creative director of Beijing Design Week (BJDW), China’s largest and internationally best reputed design & architecture event, from 2012 until 2016. An initiative of Beijing Municipality and three national Ministries (Culture, Education, Science&Technology) established in 2011, she successfully leveraged its positioning in and out of the PRC, while managing relations across stakeholders from the governmental, to public and private sectors, as well as developing corporate and diplomatic frameworks of cooperation. She is the founding director of the urban regeneration program of Baitasi historic district in Beijing (Baitasi Remade - 2015/2016).
A sinologist trained as an Asian art historian at Ca’ Foscari University (Venice), she is a regular contributor to international publications. Her own critical writing and projects have appeared in publications such as Artforum, Domus, Dezeen, Disegno magazine, IDEAT, Frieze, Abitare, Metropolis magazine, Frame, Flash Art Intl’, Wallpaper, The Good Life, and mainstream titles like The Guardian, CNN Style, The NY Times, Liberation/NEXT, as well as the Italian press - Il Sole 24 ore, Il Corriere della Sera, L’Espresso, among others.
She is chief curator of the research program 'Across Chinese Cities', presented at the International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia since 2014 and is currently the creative director and co-founder of The Global School, China's first independent institute dedicated to design and creative research.
Her most recent authored work is the book ''Ideas in Action - Critical Design Practice in China'' (November 2016).
Portfolio
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The 2030 Journal Project
The 2030 journal is an initiative launched by Beijing’s International Centre for Creativity and Sustainable Development (ICCSD) under the auspices of UNESCO, a one year editorial venture that takes as a point of departure the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 New Urban Agenda, ratified at the 2016 Habitat III Conference in Quito. Four SDGs of the total seventeen were selected to each provide a thematic blueprint for the four issues that compose the series – they are Sustainable Cities & Communities, Decent Work & Economic Growth, Affordable & Clean Energy, and Quality Education.
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The 2030 Journal Project
The 2030 journal is an initiative launched by Beijing’s International Centre for Creativity and Sustainable Development (ICCSD) under the auspices of UNESCO, a one year editorial venture that takes as a point of departure the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 New Urban Agenda, ratified at the 2016 Habitat III Conference in Quito. Four SDGs of the total seventeen were selected to each provide a thematic blueprint for the four issues that compose the series – they are Sustainable Cities & Communities, Decent Work & Economic Growth, Affordable & Clean Energy, and Quality Education.
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The 2030 Journal Project
The 2030 journal is an initiative launched by Beijing’s International Centre for Creativity and Sustainable Development (ICCSD) under the auspices of UNESCO, a one year editorial venture that takes as a point of departure the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 New Urban Agenda, ratified at the 2016 Habitat III Conference in Quito. Four SDGs of the total seventeen were selected to each provide a thematic blueprint for the four issues that compose the series – they are Sustainable Cities & Communities, Decent Work & Economic Growth, Affordable & Clean Energy, and Quality Education.
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Across Chinese Cities 2018
he exhibition explores approaches to planning linked to the development of ‘communities’ as mechanisms that create new systems of social, economic and spatial belonging.
The exhibition offers an unprecedented look at over twenty case studies that draw upon the ‘’emancipating potentialities of commoning’’ (Stavros Stavrides, The City as Commons) through integrated design strategies which embody new notions of collective identity and thus novel interrelated norms of co-dependence, participation and inclusivity.
By tackling localized predicaments generated by uneven economic distribution, environmental scarcity and demographic fragmentation, they shed light on a transitional framework of development where new subjectivities are emerging, in so producing co-actualized protocols of governance on the micro-scale.
The exhibition is organized in six thematic frameworks - Working Paradigms / The Domestic Sphere / The Consumer Revolution / Culture, Learning & Care / Leisure & Playtime / Mobility.
