Co-created Belt Bench winding in Shanghai， WDCC 2025
Co-created Belt Bench winding in Shanghai， WDCC 2025
As 2025 WDCC (World Design Cities Conference) celebrates the 15 years of anniversary of Shanghai as “Design City”, Hongtao Zhou Debuts the longest co-created belt bench by and for the cities around the world.
As deglobalization is deepening the gaps among countries, this bench is co-created by many distanced communities from the globe with their donated belts, bringing people together once again. Visitors can actually trade belts on the bench with a rule of “donate two for one” to that the bench can keep growing. It generates a participating art place for community communication and engagement.
These reused belts are symbols of connections. This winding bench takes the shape of Shanghai’s Huangpu River symbolizing its growing ties with the world and endless cycles of life, a legacy passed down from one generation to the next, connecting people from the world.
Hongtao ZHOU is an artist and designer based in Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai, Honolulu, and has held professorships at the University of Macau, Tongji University, and the University of Hawaii. He is a Director of the Permanent Collection SaloneSatellite and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Team: Hongtao ZHOU, Shuwu WANG, Ge SHENG, Shihong WANG, and Xiaotong ZHANG.
Photo: BENjiamin CHEN and Kun CAI