The Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University kicked off its annual art and design education event on Dec. 15, 2022, attempting to find patterns in the symbiosis of all things through tracing constants in variables, macro in micro and consensus in diversity.

The academy has brought together 12 presidents and more than 100 experts from top art and design institutes around the world, including the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Royal College of Art and the China Academy of Art, to discuss interdependency and synergetic development between arts and science, design and industry, and education and society, via both in-person and online events at the 2022 Tsinghua International Conference on Art & Design Education (ICADE 2022). 

The three-day event comprises five sections: International Forum of Art & Design Institute Presidents, International Academic Symposia, Interdisciplinary Workshops, Thematic Exhibitions and International Students' Forum.

At the International Forum of Art & Design Institute Presidents on the first day, presidents from the world's leading art and design institutes discussed how to create an internal academic ecology to allow different disciplines to support each other and facilitate interdisciplinary innovations, how to closely connect with the external social and industrial ecologies so that academic research results can be better transformed into productivity to improve people's lives, and future education that integrates regional characteristics and global commonalities.

Peng Gang, vice president of Tsinghua University, said during his speech at the opening ceremony that information technology and globalization have brought about profound changes, and it is time to rethink and reflect on the relationship between entity objects and virtual objects as well as humans and objects. 

Ma Sai, dean of Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts and Design, pointed out that faced with huge changes unseen in a century, a new dynamic balance between part and whole, individual and society, and known and future, urgently requires us to explore and create. He added that talents cultivated by the design academy should not only be able to solve single problems but also intricate, systematic and social problems. 

Yang Dongjiang, deputy dean of the Academy of Arts and Design, hosted the opening ceremony and introduced the theme of event, “The Symbiosis of All Things,” and said that top thinkers and front-line actors in the artistic and design spheres had been invited to discuss challenges currently confronting art and design education and how to choose future directions.