Design Map · Eindhoven
Time, Lived
Graduation project by Cong Wang at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘Time, Lived’ explores the tension between clock time, measured through schedules and deadlines and lived experience, time felt through the body, attention, memory and processes. Rooted in the designer’s experience of highly structured education in China and a continuing reliance on planning, the project asks what’s lost when time is understood mainly through efficiency, deadlines and measurable outcomes.
The designer gave himself 40 hours to make 100 porcelain cups, documenting the process through notes, audio and film. Although each cup follows the same method, fatigue, hesitation, concentration and changes in the material produce differences that resist the schedule’s apparent uniformity. The resulting cups are arranged evenly across a table, turning measured time into a physical sequence, while an accompanying film reveals the less predictable experience behind their production. ‘Time, Lived’ asks how measurable and lived time might exist together without allowing efficiency to determine the value of our lives.