The China-Kenya Creative Cultural and Art Joint Competition is co-sponsored by Donghua University and Moi University in order to promote the implementation of Chinese President Xi Jinping's initiative on "building a community with a shared future for mankind" and promote cultural exchanges and friendship between the people of China and Kenya. It is a non-profit international exchange competition jointly organized by College of Fashion and Design at Donghua university, four Confucius Institutes in Kenya, Rivatex East Africa Limited at Moi University and other Universities in Kenya.

Through the announcement of the theme of the event and the public welfare lectures on textile and clothing cultural as well as creation and fashion trends every year, all of the people in related fields in Kenya are mobilized to join hands with teachers and students of Chinese fashion colleges and universities to participate in the competition.

Through exploring the cultural elements of natural humanities, folk interests, traditional skills etc., and then through the fashion and creative technologies of Chinese teachers and students, transform these into applicable copyright works that conform to the international trend and the future market commercial value. This is also the first brand-new model created by this competition, aiming to favour the contemporary people to jointly form non-weakness innovative designs as well as maximize their strengths through network technologies, cross-border cultural integration, technical learning, brainstorming with integrating their respective advantages.

The competition takes the "copyright content" that is more needed by the current society and industry as the primary output goal. The competition first recruits artistic creation materials (mainly Kenya team members), including but not limited to: Kenya cultural theme elements, traditional crafts, folk art, totem symbols, pop culture, natural scenery, animals and plants, self-graffiti (you can also submit the content of the ‘impression of China in my eyes’), etc.; then publish it online and further recruit a designer team in China, and form a series of groups based on the first art materials.

In the first stage, both parties jointly create art design works with a sense of series, including but not limited to: pattern design, decorative paintings, comic illustrations, text SLOGAN, graphic design, poster design, photography transformation, folk art transformation, IP design (at the same time Conversion designs that incorporate Chinese elements are also welcome), which can be applied to various applications of textile and clothing cultural creation such as T-shirts, sweaters, home textiles, etc.

Afterwards, the selected award-winning works will be applied to the product transformation and sample production of T-shirts, sweaters and other categories by the creative team of professional tutors from Chinese universities.

After competition, combining Chinese industrial resources and jointly completing the production of samples with excellent technologies, the above samples will be authorized free of charge to local industries in Kenya for mass production of products, and can be linked to empower the technical training for Kenya local industries and even the development of production chains with involving new equipment to Kenya.

The introduction truly realizes the implementation from cultural exchanges to cultural and creative activities and events, and further to industrial empowerment, which is in line with the complete closed loop from "Kenya origin" to "Kenya industry" through Chinese cultural and technological empowerment as advocated by the "Belt and Road" cooperation projects.

The day of the opening ceremony, 14th December,2022, is the 59th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kenya and China. The outcomes of this competition in 2023 would be a good gift for the celebration of the 60 years friendship between two countries.

1.Competition stage setting:

The first stage: inspirational recruitment period for artistic creation materials (mainly for African organizing committees and local participants)
The second stage: Trend, industry, technical expert lecture training period (including competition roadshow)
The third stage: the original material display period of the competition (African elements and themes will be displayed and released globally)
The fourth stage: team creation period (Chinese and African contestants hand in hand to create works - three categories: Chinese elements, African elements, mixed Chinese and African elements)
The fifth stage: sample production, final review and awards, and textile and clothing culture festival activity period (organize and hold online and offline activities)

2.Competition group setting:

According to the application scenarios of the final product display, two product application groups will be set up in the hand-in-hand link of the fourth stage:
A. Trendy T-shirt group:Original visual graphic works can be expressed in the track category of trendy clothing such as T-shirts, sweaters, POLO shirts, and hooded sweatshirts through offset printing, thermal transfer printing, digital printing, embroidery, flocking and other techniques.
B. Cultural and creative gift group:Original graphic art works can be applied to textile-based (including paper packaging) gift design groups through digital printing, heat transfer printing, embroidery, jacquard, bead embroidery, bronzing and other techniques, including but not limited to: Scarves, silk scarves, bags, cushions, eye masks, neck pillows, masks, etc.)

FIRST CHINA-KENYA CREATIVE CULTURAL AND ART JOINT DESIGN COMPETITION KENYA REGIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLECTION OF ART SOURCE MATERIALS

Contestants (mainly from invited institutions in Kenya), based on your own interests, may submit source materials of art of any style or original ideas of artworks, including (and beyond) photos of source materials in the following fields or styles:

● Traditional techniques with local African characteristics, e.g. woodcut, string beads, hand dyeing, etc.

● Local African culture, e.g. classic artwork, special totem, mask, tattoo, folk art, etc.

● Local African natural eco-environment, e.g. photo of landscape, fauna, flora, climate, etc.

● Local-culture-based: character, slogan, slang, pop sign, folk pattern, etc.

● Personal-interest-based: personal original artwork (non-product, not limited to fine art, photography, etc.)

● Imaginations based on Chinese elements and Chinese culture: original expression of any means.

Requirements of submission:

● All materials need to be submitted by means of photo and e-file(1-5 photos for one material are preferred);

● An individual may submit more than one material;

● A description by words is recommended for each material(e.g. source, specialty, connotation beneath, etc.)

● Name, email, and mugshot need to be provided after the illustration or description;

● All of the above may be enclosed in a WORD (or PPT/PDF) file or packed up in a folder by your NAME.

Firstly REGISTRATION to Fill your PERSONAL INFORMATION, Then to SUBMIT your Art work.

All the source materials, after being collected by the responsible person in the respective institution, are to be submitted to the official mailbox: CYJCworkshop@163.com or submit to http://cimu.schools.com.cn/
Deadline: June 11, 2023