Shanghai Design Company Supernature at Spark
Posted On: Wednesday, 4 August 2010. By: Stephanie Fawcett, Wintec journalism student
A Shanghai-based design company, which says it is heavily influenced by New Zealand’s natural world, will be among the presenters at Spark 2010, Wintec’s international festival of media, arts and design.
SuperNature is a multi-disciplinary design company founded in 2008 by Billy Wen Hao, Lin Yew Cheang and Yeoh Guan Hong. All three have spent time in New Zealand but are now based in China where they are best known for designing and creating interactive art installations.
They will return to New Zealand for the Spark festival which runs from August 9-13 at Wintec’s Hamilton city campus.
The three men have worked extensively in design in Asia and New Zealand. They met at the Wanganui School of Design where Lin Yew and Yeoh were teachers. The pair later co-founded the New Zealand-based design studio Hyperthesis.
Lin Yew is an interactive designer, media artist and graphic designer; Yeoh graduated with a masters degree in computer graphic design. Billy, who specialises in graphic and multimedia design, grew up in Shanghai but previously worked as an art director in New Zealand. Before starting SuperNature with Lin Yew and Yeoh, he co-founded Shanghai’s What-the-Five design studio.
SuperNature’s design philosophy is heavily influenced by elements from nature and the team is always searching for new and interesting ideas in the natural world.
“We all lived in New Zealand for many years and nature was a big influence on our designs,” says Yeoh. “Lin Yew and I both researched the environment as well so nature and the environment have had the biggest influence.”
He says the three men are looking forward to the Spark Festival and are excited about their presentation. “We’ll be showing how we design an installation,” he says. “We’ll show the progression from idea to production and the final result.”
Spark will feature presentations and workshops by artists from in the fields of film, fashion, photography, graphic design, music, painting and sculpture, TV media and journalism. To see the programme, go to www.spark.net.nz