Call for application: M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship 2020

Now in its sixth year, the M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship programme will support two separate fellowship projects; one fellowship will support a research project focused on Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area in an Asian or global context, and the second fellowship will support a research project related to Asia more broadly, closely in line with the curatorial position of the Hong Kong–based institution M+.

Applicants should engage in advanced research on historical or contemporary topics relating to either a single discipline (such as architecture, graphic design, industrial design, or urbanism) or cross-disciplinary developments, taking into consideration cultural, social, economic, and political milieus as well as international and cross-cultural networks.

The successful applicants will be attached to M+ for three to six months in 2020, conducting independent research, preferably on a full-time basis. Fellows are encouraged to engage with the museum’s curatorial staff and participate in M+ programmes. The fellowship should result in 1) a paper (5,000 words or more) to be disseminated digitally or in print by M+ and Design Trust, or an equivalent outcome in an alternative format; and 2) a lecture as part of the museum’s public programmes.

Eligibility
Applications are welcome from individuals of all nationalities whose areas of research are in design, architecture, or a related field. The provision of the fellowship, however, depends on whether the fellow can obtain a visa for Hong Kong.

Applicants should either hold a postgraduate degree in a relevant discipline or an undergraduate degree with a minimum of three years of relevant professional work or academic research experience. Proficiency in spoken and written English is also required.

Stipend
The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellow will receive a lump-sum stipend of up to 40,000 HKD per month for three to six months (determined on a case-by-case basis) to cover living, insurance, and research-related costs. An overseas fellow may request a one-time travel subsidy of up to 10,000 HKD, covering transportation between the place of origin and Hong Kong.

The application will be open until July 8, 2019. For more details, please visit: www.westkowloon.hk/designfellow

For enquiries, please contact: designfellow@mplus.org.hk

About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on 40 hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.

About Design Trust
Design Trust was established in 2014 by Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, a registered charity in Hong Kong since 2007, as a grant-funding platform. Design Trust supports creative projects that develop expertise and build research initiatives and content related to Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Working across a multiplicity of design disciplines from graphics, media, and architecture to the built environment, Design Trust aims to actively accelerate creative research, design, and the development of meaningful projects that advocate for the positive role of design.