New York Asian Design Week 2026

Traces of Force, the 2026 edition of New York Asian Design Week, is a group exhibition that examines how contemporary Asian design is shaped by material, technological, environmental, cultural, structural, emotional, and social forces. The programme approaches design as an evolving process rather than a fixed visual language, focusing on tension, transformation, inheritance, displacement, belonging and adaptation. It forms part of NYADW’s two-year curatorial cycle exploring the relationship between physical and digital forms of design.

Curated by Lihan Jin, the exhibition brings together ten works by eleven artists and designers working across architecture, painting, photography, installation, furniture, product and speculative design. The participating artists and designers are Sanghoon Bae, Kurt Cheang, Yue Fan, Runxin Fu, Lihan Jin, Niki Li, Jonathan Liang, Zida Liu, Yuhan (Celine) Song, Dirk Tsai and Kang Wang. No individual speakers or panellists are identified in the programme information.

The exhibition’s focus areas include the relationship between digital fabrication and traditional craft, material pressure and bodily resistance, and urban perception in the context of emerging technologies. Works named in the programme include Runxin Fu’s Hejduk Lamp and Breathing Light, Dirk Tsai’s Tremor, Lihan Jin’s Tension Instrument, Kang Wang’s The Boat, Yuhan (Celine) Song’s One Kiln’s Flame, Generations of Touch, SANKAI – Mountain / Ocean / In-Between by Jonathan Liang, Kurt Cheang, Lihan Jin and Zida Liu, Niki Li’s Tension & Tranquillity, Yue Fan’s Reclaiming Shared Reality, and Sanghoon Bae’s The Greater Archipelago.

The programme is relevant to audiences engaged with contemporary Asian design, architecture, art, craft, technology and cultural exchange, including architects, artists, designers, makers, creative thinkers and broader community audiences. NYADW is hosted by Lighthouse Global Foundation Inc., with partners and supporters including LMCC and the Chinese American Arts Council / Gallery 456. The project is also supported through Creative Engagement, a regrant programme administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with public arts funding partners.

Traces of Force positions Asian design as a field shaped by active processes of making, pressure and change. It presents cultural identity as something formed through materials, technologies, environments and lived experience, rather than through a single aesthetic definition.