75. CHIYANG DUAN: A SPACE BETWEEN THE JEWELLER AND THE EYE.
CHACHA, “The unfamiliar objects”, Nylon, Iron and copper sulfate, London, 2022.
The first image I saw of yours was a portrait of a hand with rings of rusted metal - this image says so much! Time, decay, history - life! Please can speak of this work and the context from which this image comes from?
That image is a photo record of myself wearing my Jewellery collection that I made during my Royal College of Art work in progress show in 2022.
Walking in the city is the way for me to explore and understand the culture and people who are living there, the architecture is like a mirror that projects how people in the city imagine themselves living.
This collection is inspired by the city of London. I was not born here, so there are lots of buildings constructed with specific functions that even local people can’t understand since they are never open to the public.
I collected a few details (from the buildings) and rebuilt them in digital, made them into ring size, cut them in half, and then combined them with another piece of half-cut architecture, so people could wear them on their fingers and observe them in our hands.
Your training as a jewellery designer has underpinned the rigor of your practice and I see that skill of articulation within what you do, which contradicts the ease of the visual in a very interesting way... what do you feel your training as a jeweler has taught you?
It is interesting that the reason I decided not to continue to be a jeweler is because I hate the perfection that people in the jewellery industry are chasing.
Since jewellery is always a small object that even a small mark can really damage a masterpiece, but also because this passion for perfection - that I trained for - that helps me and pushes me to finish most of my work as a fashion designer - is literally something that can be immediately mass-produced… Even though some of my most conceptual work looks like a product, this attitude helps me to achieve what I think is important for design: practicality and solving problems.
Also, I am obsessed with material processing methods and a variety of material choices… For me, fashion design is never just made from fabric but also metal, concrete, plastic…
Your new work focuses on glasses design, and is characteristically specific to you, please can you introduce this body of work and the journey it has taken you on?
The eyewear collection represents my aesthetic, but more importantly, it shows one of my core design goals…
I have seen companies try to increase profit to generate a new category of products that cause a lot of waste of labor and resources by betting on a new product that may or may not succeed, especially in today's society, when 90% of categories have already been invented. This approach is often a huge waste. Transforming a popular design into a completely different look to extend its lifespan and give an old product a fresh feel can be an effective solution.
This is why I do eyewear, because I believe it has great potential to explore, since most of the eyewear designs, not just fashion brands but also tech companies, only develop their eyewear by only changing the shape of the frame, barely have designs to restructure the lens. I am trying to find a new direction by exploring the possibility of how the lens can be used and shaped.
The twisted structure perfectly fits the ergonomics, and the most challenging part of eyewear, which is the dramatic appearance without affecting usability.
I am very interested in this idea of fluidity within your work... within ideas, materials, space... can you reflect upon fluidity within your practice?
I really love the word fluidity, especially when you mention the fluidity between ideas, materials and space…
For me, design is rational and art can not lack sensitivity.
If we describe design as a rational approach, like a mathematical formula, then these three aspects are the triangle that formed design, because material build space, and space-inspired ideas, ideas affect material choice.
It’s a closed loop that I will keep reflecting on during the whole design process, and it helps me to keep a rational thought process.
Rational thinking helps me to remain calm when I am solving problems during my design process. I believe this is the most valuable method that I have learned in the UK education system.
Sometimes people call it critical thinking.
I loved how you spoke about seeking inspiration from Josef Alber's use of colour within your practice - the point of 'people before us' as you said... can you reflect more on this?
My eyewear collection is inspired by the London Underground, and the colour system includes a whole visual guide that is surprisingly similar to Josef Albers' series of paintings: colour studies and also Lucian Freud's paintings.
Josef Albers's colour theory is powerful and timeless.
The round/arc and smooth shape of the eyewear I have designed takes alot of inspiration from corner curves in the stations, which is a kind of detail that no longer appears in modern architecture. It is an aesthetic that only exists in the imagination of previous generations.
Chacha will join M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) editor in chief, Joe Richards, at the 2024 LAC London Emerging Artist Forum on Saturday 13th July 2024.
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