Vietnamese designers are for the first time heading to a major exhibition in London next month.

A design displayed in London Design Biennale exhibition (Photo: Courtesy of organisers)

'Emotional States', the 2018 London Design Biennale exhibition will be held in the UK from September 4 to 23.

The exhibition is co-sponsored by the University of Leicester School of Business (ULSB), NashTech, Vietnam-UK Network, and Vietnam Airlines.

It aims to explore big questions and ideas about sustainability, migration, pollution, energy, cities, and social equality.

A highlight on the global cultural calendar, the Biennale will see some of the world’s most exciting and ambitious designers, innovators and cultural bodies gather in the UK’s capital to celebrate the universal power of design and explore the role of design in collective futures.

The exhibition presents the best examples in the world from established and emerging designers, architects, scientists, writers and artists.

More than 40 countries, cities and territories in the world will reveal how design influences our emotions.

Dr Marta Gasparin, lecturer in Design and Innovation Management at ULSB, and colleagues at ULSB have been working to connect designers and social and creative enterprises with female artisans and craft makers’ communities in Vietnam, promoting social innovation, fair and ethical collaborations, and an appreciation of cultural heritage.

“Vietnam’s story has long been told within the narrow brackets of a particular take on history and long been gazed at from a select number of vantage points. It is pieced together by many little stories, anecdotal evidence and spotlights directed at clichés,” said Gasparin.

Fashion Designer Thao Vu of Kilomet 109 who is elevating traditional fabric making to contemporary couture; Multidisciplinary designer Giang Nguyen, who is trawling through past decades to unearth patterns, fonts and colours that only get better with age and contemporary subversion; Visual artist and VJ Le Thanh Tung (Crazy Monkey), who inserts the symbolism of years into multimedia genres, will take part in the exhibition.

Viewers will be able to change the projection through an interactive device.

The display will use type, and colour and texture of indigenous Vietnamese processes and languages to define emotional states and let the viewer immerse themselves in our perception of these emotional states through, texture, colour, process and unknown language and type.-VNS/VNA