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FoSE students strengthen collaboration with exhibition at Yangming’s former residence


On 520 Valentine’s Day, 13 lamps designed by UNNC Product Design and Manufacture (PDM) students were exhibited in Wang Yangming’s former residence. It was part of the second-year PDM students’ module MMME1014, Industrial Design Professional Practice.

2022 marks the 550th anniversary of the birth of Wang Yangming. This event has attracted wide attention from all walks of life including local and national media. Zhonghua Book Company, a publisher known for its focus on the humanities, especially classical Chinese works, also expressed their willingness to cooperate with the UNNC PDM programme.

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Mr Yi Huang, the person in charge of the former residence of Yangming and the Deputy Director of the Yuyao Cultural Relic Protection and Management Institute, spoke highly of the event at the opening ceremony of the exhibition. He said that as one of the outstanding elements of traditional Chinese culture, the wisdom of Yangming’s philosophy remains as enlightening to people today as it did 500 years ago. He was very pleased to see PDM students creatively transform the Yangming philosophy into something tangible as shown in the “Light of Mind” exhibition. “This exhibition symbolises the beginning of a new chapter in inheriting and promoting Yangming’s philosophy. At the same time, it also marks the new collaboration between the museum and the university,” said Mr Huang.

One of the core ideas in Yangming’s philosophy is “the unity of knowledge and action”. The exhibition, as part of the design module, also demonstrates the approach of “learning by doing”. Dr Jiang Wu, the module convener of Industrial Design Professional Practice, told us that the PDM programme has long put emphasis on practical learning, which perfectly fits with Yangming’s philosophy of “unity of knowledge and action”.

All second-year PDM students visited Yangming’s former residence at the beginning of the module and were deeply inspired by Yangming’s philosophy. They finally produced 40 creative lamps, but due to limits in space, only 13 lamps were presented on site. The students demonstrated their creative abilities through the four dimensions of functionality, aesthetics, interaction design, and technology integration.

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The idea of “unity of knowledge and action” has always been rooted in the teaching philosophy at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Through project-based learning, students are able to put the knowledge they learned from class into use in order to solve the problems in the real world. The Faculty also places great emphasis on providing a quality-oriented education to students with both classroom and extra-curricular activities like the Faculty Undergraduate Research Placement.

The UNNC Faculty of Science and Engineering endeavours to promote Chinese traditional culture and tell the Chinese story to the world. Two international students, Malambo Lushomo and Masulani Bokola, have also joined the module this semester. They are both postgraduate students from the Zhejiang University, Ningbo. Malambo Lushomo’s lamp design was permanently installed in Yangming’s former residence.

This is the third year for Faculty of Science and Engineering to cooperate with Yangming’s former residence. Through this in-depth collaboration, the students have been able to gain a more profound understanding of Yangming’s philosophy while also helping to promote it on the global stage.

Published on 24 May 2022