m+ / design trust research fellowship

Since 2015, the M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship programme has supported original research projects investigating issues relating to design and architecture 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 will inform research on the existing collection, future acquisitions, and other programmes at M+.

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.

About the 2023 Fellowship Introduction The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship 2023 will support two fellowship projects:

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.

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:

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 a lecture as part of the museum’s public programmes.