Some of the guests who attended the forum pose for a group photo at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Dec 6. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A forum on the contemporary art of Chinese characters was held at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Dec 6. As a sub forum of the 2014 Lu Culture Forum, the event was organized by the Luxun Culture Foundation and the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University.

Lu Xiaobo, dean of the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University, Zhou Lingfei, Secretary-General of the Lu Xun Culture Foundation, as well as representatives from the calligraphy and design communities attended the meeting.

The forum centered around two themes -"the art of calligraphy in contemporary context" and "the design of Chinese characters in contemporary context".

Two exhibitions were launched the same day in line with the forum and will run through Dec 12. One is a calligraphy exhibition by five postdoctoral fellows at the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University. The other is a character design exhibition by Arphic Technology Co. Ltd and Beijing Founder Electronics.

Professor Sun Yu from the School of Liberal Arts at Renmin University of China delivered a speech entitled, "From the Rise of Vernacular Chinese to the Simplification of Chinese Language". He recalled the thinking and practices that transformed Chinese characters during the May Fourth era.

Professor Qiu Zhenzhong at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts combed the origin, preservation and innovation of the art of Chinese calligraphy. Qiu believes Chinese calligraphy originated in people's dissatisfaction with verbal expression, and it makes up the missing emotional content in the use of language concepts. Qiu said that in the past 30 years, his ideal on calligraphy was to restore calligraphy theory and the important position of calligraphy creation. Qiu showed famous calligrapher Lin Sanzhi’s and his own calligraphy works, introducing his reflection on creative practice in calligraphy.