From 29 to 31 May, the 21st Strait Travel Fair & the 11th China (Xiamen) International Leisure Tourism Expo 2026 kicked off at the Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Centre. Within the Xiamen Tourist Festival · Good Stuff · Creative Carnival, the Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI), Xiamen University presented three original art and design projects: Homecoming, Streets of Xiamen, and Aqua Ludens. Through immersive installations, urban documentary photography, and AI-assisted microbial design, the projects expanded the exhibition beyond static display, offering participatory experiences that fused academic innovation with creative experimentation.
As a leading and influential cultural & tourism expo in Xiamen, this year’s event brought together domestic and international cultural and tourism resources. Guided by the goals of revitalizing urban cultural heritage and empowering cultural-tourism consumption, it serves as a comprehensive platform for industry exchanges and achievement exhibitions. Drawing on ICI’s strengths in Sino-foreign cooperative education and deep interdisciplinary integration of industry and academia, these exhibited works were jointly created by both ICI faculty and students. They not only translated classroom learning into real-world applications, but also embodied ICI’s practical commitment to advancing university-local collaboration, rooted in local cultural resources and leveraging creative design to drive high-quality development of Xiamen’s cultural tourism sector.
Created by five students, the immersive healing art installation Homecoming addresses modern urbanites’ homesickness with an interactive art space integrating immersive experience, on-site co-creation, and derivative cultural products.
Visitors entering the space first complete a personalized emotional assessment. Their responses are instantly linked to a large screen, generating a unique, dynamic visual piece titled “Memory Echo”. Through immersive light, shadow and interconnectivity, participants process their emotions and reconnect with nostalgia. Original merchandise, including reflective badges, custom Instax photos and souvenir tickets, transform fleeting moments of on-site healing into tangible keepsakes. Blending humane care, psychological therapy, immersive art and derivative product development, the work pioneers a new pathway for emotion-driven consumption in cultural tourism.
Streets of Xiamen is a collaborative creation by ICI faculty Matteo Aimini and Samuel Penn, together with teaching assistant Wu Ziyuan. Centered on documentary photography and interactive physical urban mapping, the work presents a unique artistic interpretation of the city.
The creative team conducted in-depth field research across Xiamen’s old alleyways. Focusing on traditional residential architecture, historic street textures and authentic local daily life, the team captured through their lenses the grassroots vitality and evolving urban heritage of Gulangyu and Xiamen, hidden amid the city’s modern high-rises. Using the camera lens to “deconstruct” Xiamen’s streets and alleys right before visitors’ eyes, every single frame captures the city’s hidden pulse and rhythm.
Like urban ethnographers, the three artists explored the very fabric of everyday life—its unique textures, forms, and subtle influence on urban identity. This initial exploration seeks not superficial commercial aesthetics or postcard-perfect scenery, but rather celebrates an “extraordinary ordinariness”. It is a visual journey into the quiet, everyday elements that constitute Xiamen’s hidden soul.
Frontier Art and Technology: Aqua Ludens creates a miniature aquatic garden where AI and living ecology meet
Designed by Dr Pierangelo Marco Scravaglieri and Dr Mitra Cheraghi, Aqua Ludens is a mixed-media installation combining AI-generated design, 3D printing, hand refinement and living algae ecology. Starting from an ordinary toy prototype, the work evolved through AI image generation, digital modelling and 3D fabrication, culminating in a miniature aquatic garden shaped by water flow, bubbles, light and living algae. Inside the installation, water circulates, bubbles rise, and algae gathers and grows, creating a slowly changing underwater micro-world that seems to breathe. Visitors can observe how AI-generated imagery is translated into architectural form, and how digital fabrication, manual adjustment and living ecology interact within one experimental design system.
During the exhibition, the three artworks attracted a large number of citizens and cultural tourism professionals, who engaged in interactive experiences, thanks to their diverse interactive forms, distinctive artistic features and innovative cutting-edge designs.
Since its founding, ICI has adhered to its development philosophy centered on local engagement, international collaboration, and industry-empowered education. It regularly connects with government and industry resources, bringing classroom creativity beyond campus and into diverse public cultural tourism spaces across the city. Through professional design practices, ICI continuously supports the upgrading and development of Xiamen’s local cultural tourism industry.
Looking ahead, drawing on the strengths of Sino-foreign cooperative education, ICI will continue to develop interdisciplinary original art projects and explore the profound historical and cultural essence of Xiamen. Focusing on creative design, it will cultivate innovative models of cultural tourism in the city and establish a long-term, win-win platform that enables mutual empowerment between university-led creative research and urban cultural tourism development.
