Open call: M+ / Design Trust research fellowships 2023

The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship was established in 2015 to support original curatorial research into the histories and processes of design and architectural production in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and Asia, through a transnational lens. In addition to expanding the current body of knowledge in these areas, the findings from the fellowship have enriched our understanding of the M+ Collections and informed our approach to exhibition-making, future acquisitions, and other public programmes. Past Fellows include architects, designers and historians Fan Ling, Joseph Grima, Juliana Kei, Daniel Cooper, Hugh Davies, Fan Lok Yi, Sampson Wong, Oliver Elser, Yasmin Tri Aryani, Jason Lau, Mark Wasiuta, Farzin Lotfi-Jam, Emily Verla Bovino and Anouchka van Driel.

Applicants of the Fellowship should engage in advanced research on historical or contemporary topics related to either a single discipline (such as architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and urbanism) or cross-disciplinary developments, taking into consideration the region’s cultural, social, economic, and political conditions as well as its international and cross-cultural knowledge networks. While topics from the 1950s and onwards are preferred, exceptional proposals that focus on issues related to the beginning of the twentieth century will also be considered.

The 2023 edition will support two types of Fellowships:

Fellowship I supports a Hong Kong-based researcher’s original enquiry on topics specifically derived from M+ Collection Archives related to design and architecture. Although the archives represent the works of designers and architects in Asia and beyond, proposed research topics should resonate with issues pertaining to design and architectural developments and discourse in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Preserving and cataloguing the archives continues to be an immense ongoing process. There are currently forty-three fonds that have been catalogued, of which the majority can be viewed online. For those interested in this Fellowship, the archives and those yet to be published online can be accessed at the M+ Research Centre. For supplementary information on the M+ Collection Archives, please click here.

Fellowship II supports a researcher or practitioner engaged in historical or practice-based research that contributes to expanding the knowledge of the methods, processes, and impact of design and architectural practices in or across Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and Asia.

Successful applicants will be attached to M+ for three to six months in 2023, conducting independent research, preferably on a full-time basis. Fellows are encouraged to engage with the museum’s curatorial staff and participate in programmes at M+. 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.

Each Fellow will receive a lump-sum stipend of up to 40,000 Hong Kong dollars per month for three to six months (determined on a case-by-case basis) to cover living, insurance, and research-related costs.

The deadline for submitting the application is September 26, 2022 (Monday). Please send all application materials digitally and address enquiries to designfellow [​at​] mplus.org.hk. For more information, please visit here.

On June 25, “Research on the Move: Dialogues with M+ / Design Trust Research Fellows” brought together Fellows from 2015-2019 in dialogue with Hong Kong-based practitioners. For more information, please visit here.