Marking Dai FUJIWARA’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, held at HKDI Gallery from now until 28 March 2021, is a first-ever look into his creative career that started with creating objects by hand, then gradually expanded into design engineering. Thoughtfully curated by Dai FUJIWARA himself, the exhibition uses the idea of “hands” as a starting point, and showcases Fujiwara’s long-time fascination with human hands as well as his continuous research and exploration of “future hands”: technology. Bringing to light some of his earliest works from his time as a student up to his most recent, never-before-seen creations, the exhibition is also a conversation between the present and the future, capturing Fujiwara’s journey through different realms, from nature and technology to design, art, community and society. Drawing on Fujiwara’s dynamic projects in a wide range of genres, the exhibition is divided into three distinctive areas, featuring a total of 34 exhibits accompanied by multimedia elements. The first area of the exhibition puts 24 of Fujiwara’s past and recent works together. Showcased on panels and videos surrounded by specially designed knit installation arches, viewers are invited to discover some of Fujiwara’s most iconic works, including “Poincaré Odyssey” for the 2010-2011 Autumn / Winter Paris Collection, where Fujiwara applied the concept of topology in mathematics to the runway and designed garments incorporating twisted rings inspired by the eight models of the universe; his various student projects while at university; as well as creative projects that address social issues in collaboration with various organisations and institutes. As a continuation, the second area introduces a series of installations and projects that focus on Fujiwara’s unique design methods and perspectives. Inspired by his personal research and investigations, Fujiwara devised the “colour-hunting” concept, where colours in real life were reproduced with watercolour mixed onto pieces of paper. Presenting new design possibilities based on these “real colour” swatches from the natural world and our cities, the exhibition showcases Fujiwara’s various colour-hunting projects, including his works with an eyewear and a cosmetics brand respectively: “Skin Color Glasses” and “Baby Skin Earphones”, in which he created eyeglasses and earphones with colours derived from adults’ and babies’ skin colours; “Enoshima Electric Railways, Information Train”, a moving installation to illustrate how colours hunted from countless leaves in Enoshima came together, and were recreated into a stripe pattern of 17 colours worn by the local tram car; “Lion Shoes” for a footwear brand, with mobile robots mounted onto shoes dyed with colours collected from African lions, resembling lions catching prey in the wild; and “Color of Sky”, a collection of different sky colours documented by Fujiwara since 2013. The third and final area of the exhibition unveils Fujiwara’s most recent works that brought creativity in cyberspace into reality. Adopting ongoing experiments with technology, Fujiwara operated different robots instead of using hands to create garments. In his “Garbage Turned Yarn - Grassland Sweater, Urban Sweater” collection, Fujiwara breathed new life into garbage using a handheld vacuum cleaner as his new pair of hands. He gathered hair dropped by animals in Mongolia and debris from the streets of New York and Tokyo and spun these into yarn to create eight sweaters. Viewers will be able to experience Fujiwara’s point of view in the garment creation process through an immersive multimedia experience. Drones, as an extension of the hand, were also used to create the namesake “Cyber Physical Hands” for the exhibition. By programming the drone with drawing mediums, then navigating them to draw patterns by dropping the materials onto a fabric, Fujiwara’s latest apparel creations made from drone-painted fabric demonstrate future design ideas fused with the use of technology. Ending on an inspirational note, the exhibition closes with a video interview of Fujiwara recounting his own journey through different realms of design, and his quest to blur the borders between the past, present, and future. While the world may continue to face mounting challenges in 2021 and beyond, Fujiwara concludes that the exhibition aims to bring forth unique perspectives and values despite difficulties, at a scale as limitless as the sky. In line with social distancing measures, the exhibition will adopt a session-based policy with limitations to the number of visitors within the gallery. Visitors will be required to book their preferred timeslots in advance at https://hkdigallery_daifujiwara_admission.eventbrite.com for timed visits.