The academic forum with the theme of "Interdisciplinary Creativity Future" was successfully held by the Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI) from April 10 to April 11 while Xiamen University (XMU) celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The opening ceremony of the forum was held on the morning of April 10 in the third main building of Zhangzhou Campus, XMU. Eight guests were invited to deliver keynote speeches, including Professor ZHANG Linghao, Vice President of Jiangnan University, Professor ZHOU Haoming, Director of Sustainable Design Research Institute, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Professor MA Juncheng, Dean of the School of Urban Design, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Professor CHEN Wangheng, Researcher of the Academy of Social Sciences of Wuhan University, and Professor WU Guanjun, Director of the Department of Political Studies of East China Normal University, Professor YUAN Youmin, Executive Director of China International Design Museum, China Academy of Art, Professor JIANG Yuhui, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University, Associate Researcher, YU Yue, Department of Philosophy, Sichuan University and Dr. Philip Lambert, Associate Dean of ICI. This academic activity has attracted tutors and students of ICI and other colleges, including undergraduate and postgraduate students from the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering and the College of Arts. The opening ceremony was hosted by WANG Yi, Chair of ICI Council. YANG Yang, Deputy Director of the Management Committee of Zhangzhou Campus XMU, and QIN Jian, Dean of ICI, delivered speeches respectively.
YANG Yang first welcomed academic experts from various fields to gather at Zhangzhou campus to exchange academic ideas. He quoted President XI Jinping's congratulatory letter to XMU for the 100th anniversary of the contribution of the cultivation of outstanding talents. He said that this forum is one of the important academic events for the university’s centennial celebration, which intensifies international exchanges and cooperation of XMU. He hoped that ICI can further implement the fundamental task of "fostering virtue through education", promote the construction of a new liberal arts subject that integrates "arts, science and technology", and contribute to the building of first-class disciplines and first-class universities.
On behalf of ICI, QIN Jian thanked the experts and scholars for their participation to the interdisciplinary and intercultural academic exchange, dialogue and discussion. He emphasized that the establishment of ICI integrates educational resources from XMU and University for Creative Arts (UCA) with the aim of cultivating comprehensive creative and innovative talents who can adapt to social development, especially the future development of artificial intelligence technology. He said in the time when social and economic development are served by cultural creativity and design, strengthening innovation momentum and improving creative education is the important connotation of this academic forum.
On the main forum, the nine keynote speakers focused on the theme of the forum and developed their thoughts from their respective fields. The respective topics of the speakers are Professor ZHANG Linghao's "Towards a New System Design", Professor WU Guanjun's "Rethinking Love, Death and Posthumanity", Professor ZHOU Haoming's "Romantic Rationality--The Innovative Way of Nordic Design", Professor YUAN Youmin's "Integration of Literature and Taoism--The Duality of Text and Vision", Professor MA Juncheng's "Design for Experience", Professor CHEN Wangheng's "The Contemporary International Destiny of Chinese Classical Gardens", Dr. Philip Lambert’s “Complex Adaptive System Theory of Creativity”, Professor JIANG Yuhui’s “Post-Humanity, Acceleration and Ghost Time”, and Associate Researcher YU Yue’s “Mutation, Classification and New Species” .
On the afternoon of April 10, the sub-forum activities were held at three locations on Zhangzhou campus XMU. The first sub-forum with the theme "Development and Future of Visual Communication in New Vision" was chaired by Associate Professor CHEN Yi, Director of Visual Communication Design, ICI. The guest speakers were Professor YUAN Youmin and Professor MA Juncheng. The second sub-forum with the theme "Future and Sustainability of Cross-Border Innovation" was chaired by Associate Professor Zhong Zhen, Director of Environmental Design. The guests were Professor ZHOU Haoming and Professor ZHANG Linghao. The third one with theme "Imagination in the Extreme State" was chaired by Assistant Professor MA Wen, Director of Digital Media Art. The guests included Professor WU Guanjun, Professor JIANG Yuhui and Associate Researcher YU Yue. Experts and scholars made speeches around the themes of the sub-forums. They expressed their personal opinions and had dialogues on some sharp topics in the field of contemporary creative industry and innovative design. They also had a warm discussion with the tutors and students afterwards.
The "Interdisciplinary Creativity Future" academic forum successfully concluded on the same day. In the future, ICI will hold more high-level academic lectures or forums to provide more opportunities for students to benefit from the academic exchanges with renowned scholars and researchers.
