A beautiful new watch design from Chinese contemporary art duo, Birdhead, evokes a subtle sense of mystery and style

Forming exciting working relationships with visual artists continues to be of paramount importance to Swatch. Since as far back as the mid-1980s, the iconic Swiss watch and jewellery maker has successfully collaborated with emerging and established talents, hailing from all corners of the world. This thrilling mix of artists – ranging from Keith Haring and Kiki Picasso , to Fafi, Rankin, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Moby, to name just a few – has joined forces with Swatch during the past three decades in a mutual quest to create art for the wrist. These carefully orchestrated collisions of aesthetic and technical excellence unfailingly result in breathtaking time pieces, coveted by style-obsessives and culture-lovers globally.

The latest design introduced under the Swatch & Art banner is New Gent Majestic Bird (SUOZ707S), a stunning watch limited and numbered to an edition of 1888 pieces, with special packaging, created by Ji Weiyu and Song Tao of the contemporary art duo, Birdhead. The design arises from Birdhead’s ongoing preoccupation with the medium of photography and the various ways in which photographic processes can explore and document the passing of time. A delicate black and white palette has been deployed by the duo, ensuring this particular time piece whispers rather than shouts its presence, while its pleasingly-grainy photo-print surface encourages a wonderful sense of ambiguity. The watch is made from a neat combination of plastic and silicone. The packaging, by contrast, elegantly utilises cardboard and comes in a precise 12 cm x 12 cm cube shape, featuring a dramatic close-up of the same bird head image used upon the watch.

Birdhead comprises of Ji Weiyu and Song Tao, both of whom were born in Shanghai, in 1980 and 1979, respectively. The two friends graduated in the year 2000, from the prestigious Shanghai Arts and Crafts School. Having subsequently formed a creative alliance under the name of Birdhead, in 2004, Ji and Song have since gained great acclaim for their distinctive and thought-provoking photographic works – often using a deliberately “snapshot” aesthetic, to capture on camera all manner of moments from their daily lives, set against the vast urban backdrop of 21st century Shanghai. Since the second half of the Nineties, Birdhead has successfully exhibited these works in a wide range of solo and group shows, staged in noted galleries, museums and cultural institutions throughout far flung corners of the world – including Oslo, Hong Kong and London, as well as Tokyo, Florence, Shanghai and New York.

Birdhead explain their design inspirations:

«Photography is Birdhead’s major creative medium. Our work is based on shooting numerous photographs inspired by our daily life, which really drives us to understand “the meaning of time” implied by photography. This understanding arises not only from the moments when we shoot the images, but also during the process of developing the negatives, enlarging the film in the darkroom, and through the process of developing the actual photographs. When we look at all our images, emerging on photo paper, that’s when the feeling of time elapsing begins to become apparent.

Swatch makes products which are connected to time, so it felt very natural for us to design a watch for Swatch. In our design, we focused on the meaning of “time” as we understand it. The enlarged particles of silver salt, the use of film photography, as well as the significant focus we gave to the packaging, have all been collectively explored to create our overall design. The watch and the packaging feature an image of a flying bird which is composited by enlarged particles of silver salt. This print is taken from a photograph in our book “Birdhead 2006, Xin Cun” and four chapter titles we used for this book, which are four Chinese characters: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The pattern on the watch’s surface is part of this print, which we cut out.

Birdhead had always perceived Swatch as a watch manufacturer connected to youth and style. During this collaboration, we also became increasingly aware of Swatch’s enthusiasm and support for contemporary culture and art. Working with Swatch has been a unique and rewarding experience for Birdhead, helping us to understand how to simply and successfully complete a design project.»