Yan Jiang is a Chinese designer who has been working and living in Switzerland for a long time. She has a background in industrial design and product design. After completing her studies at South China University of Technology and Tongji University successively, she completed mas luxe, design for luxury and craftsmanship at ecal in Milan and Switzerland. After graduation, she served in luxury brands in the Swiss watch and jewelry industry for seven or eight years, and then founded her own studio and contemporary jewelry brand in 2019.

This time during her residency, she conducted research on craftsmanship such as Miao silverware, exquisite porcelain, and glass art. She used “production tools (tools)” as the connection point for the derivative works to run through the three groups of design works, presenting the process of handicrafts behind the products and showing the production process as the design result. At the same time, she also attempted to broaden the technical boundaries and usage scenarios of some traditional craftsmanship, as well as the modern application experiments of traditional materials, with the intention of reconstructing and presenting traditional elements in a new language. 

Design works are usually only presented in the form of final results, but Yan wants to present the important design processes,  methods, and tools to people through traditional presentation methods.

In the final work, the design tools are integrated into the work, and the combination of relevant materials allows everyone to see and "take part" in the traditional handicraft production process.

【FILAMENT】

Drawing silver wire is fundamental to the filigree inlay and metalworking techniques in Miao silver craftsmanship. Typically, a silver rod measuring about 5-6 cm in length and approximately 5 mm in thickness can be drawn into a silver wire approximately 0.26 mm thick and over twenty meters long through multiple drawing and annealing processes. Yan presents this production process as an installation piece, with different thicknesses and interlaced layers. The relevant tool - the wire drawing board is retained as part of the work. At the same time, a lot of classic Miao jewelry elements are used on the top of each wire.

The work retains the wire drawing board as one of the pictures, presenting the design process in the form of design results. At the same time, the work is named "wire drawing", and the verb is used to summarize the interesting process of the work as if the designer's wire drawing action is presented in front of you.

【CURVATURE】

Based on the traditional use of small curvatures and filigree in Miao silver jewelry, this work explores the application and presentation of large curvatures in filigree. The piece consists of three egg-shaped forms of varying sizes, each featuring filigree with different curvatures. These layers are progressively stacked, utilizing the curvature of the filigree itself to inlay silver beads of various diameters. This approach showcases the traditional element of filigree through the interplay of the curves and the embedded beads.

【LIGHT IN THE RUINS】

Linglong porcelain is a traditional type of ceramics from Jingdezhen. It usually features rice grain-shaped perforations carved into the vessel, which are then filled with a translucent glaze and fired at high temperatures to create tableware. This series of works takes Linglong porcelain as a starting point for research, attempting to explore the technical boundaries of Linglong glaze. The designer uses one of the common tools in ceramic making - a scouring pad - as the medium for design language. By utilizing the inherent texture of the scouring pad to distribute the Linglong holes, the designer created a series of sculptures that can be used as lamps.

【BUBBLE WRAPS VASES】

Bubble wrap, typically used as packaging material, is generally only used for packing. Objects are wrapped, transported, and then unwrapped, with the bubble wrap subsequently discarded. Yan reused discarded bubble wrap from the ceramic studio to rewrap local classic ceramics. By employing glassblowing techniques, the designer reinterpreted the packaging process, combining the packaging material with the object itself to create new objects. This work explores the boundaries between objects and design, concepts and creation.