BCAF presents the "Social Innovation Forum" and "Cultural and Creative Dialogue Forum" featuring prominent culture leaders

TEXT:Sue Wang    DATE: 2017.10.12

Poster

As part of the newly announced Creative China Festival, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (BCAF) is pleased to present the Social Innovation Forum on October 14, 2017, and the Cultural and Creative Dialogue Forum on October 17, 2017. The two forums feature prominent culture leaders from both countries, creating conversation and debate to further enhance understanding and idea exchange between them.

The first round of the bilateral "Social and People-to-People Dialogue" was held in Washington D.C on September 28, 2017. Co-chaired by Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, this event was one of four high-level discussions established during the Mar-a-Lago meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Florida in April. BCAF's Creative China Festival is the official project of the "First Round of the Bilateral Social and People-to-People Dialogue Action Plan", and the China-US Cultural Forums part of the Creative China Festival, will continue the conversations under the theme of "Mutual Understanding, Coexistence Sharing".

Contemporary China is characterized by its vibrant development and constant changes, equally in terms of economy and art, culture and social innovation. This China-US Cultural Forums Series aims to showcase the fluidity of China today, by focusing on engaging and insightful discussions covering three areas: cultural collaboration, social innovation, and cultural and creative dialogue, themes frequently found in conversations these days.

The Social Innovation Forum features the change-makers and innovators who are making their unique contributions to social development in China and the US. The speakers come from diverse backgrounds, such as leaders in startups and not-for-profit foundations; together they will share their visions and expertise on how to create better societies under different social and political structures, and on how to create cross-cultural dialogues in areas of business, policy-making, design and not-for-profit global operations.

The Cultural and Creative Dialogue gathers a group of important artists and creative professionals from China and the US, each of them will introduce themselves with a 10 minutes' speech about their practice. Through the presentation, the artists will share their insights of, and reflections on the contemporary art industry and society in general.

In collaboration with Center of China and Globalization Think Tank, JD Foundation, Tencent, Tenyun Think Tank, China Institute, Asia Contemporary Art Week, NYU The DO School, New York Foundation for the Arts and China House, the forums invite industry leaders, change-makers and innovators to participate and share their thoughts and practices, each who have made notable contributions in their individual fields.

China-US Cultural Forums | Social Innovation

Date: October 14, 2017

Time: 2 – 6pm

Venue: The Stage, The Times Center, New York

Address: 242 W 41st St, New York, NY 10036, USA

Supporter: Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China

Organizer: Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation

Co-organizer: JD Foundation

Partners: The DO School, Pace University

Speakers:

Felix W. Ortiz, Assistant Speaker of the New York State Assembly

Sun Zhixiang, Vice-president of JD.com

Hank Cauley, Senior Vice President of Conservation International

Ma Libo, Secretary General of JD Foundation

Rebecca Shaw, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President, WWF

Toby Usnik, Founder of Philanthropic Impact Partners (π)

Yuan Yue, Chairman of Dataway Horizon, Director of Horizon Center of Youth Entrepreneurship for Society

Ma Ke, Designer, Founder of Wuyong

Christopher van Bergen, Chief Operating Officer of Nest

Irving Chan Gomez, Global Partnerships Associate and Localization Manager of B-lab

Jia Rong, Executive Director of the Dashilar Project

Zhang Biwei, President of Art Dream WWF, Unilever, & Etc.

He Lijun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor on Nonprofit Management at Pace University (Moderator)

China-US Cultural Forums | Cultural and Creative Dialogue

Date: October 17, 2017

Time: 1 – 4pm

Venue: Lipton Hall, NYU Law School, New York

Address: 33 Washington Square W, New York

Supporter: Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China

Organizer: Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation

Co-organizers: Asia Contemporary Art Week, New York Foundation for the Arts, NYU China House

Speakers:

Michael L. Royce, Executive Director of the New York Foundation for the Arts

Christopher Ho, Artist (Moderator)

Song Dong, Artist

Guo Hongwei, Artist

Yang Xin, Artist

Li Jin, Artist

Courtesy of the organizer.