Building Contemporary Personal Narrative through Interpretation of Traditional Chinese Visual Culture

This PhD project explores how the negotiation of different cultures can be reinterpreted in visual form through jewellery-based object making. Through practice-led research, I have drawn from my childhood memories of traditional Chinese visual culture, combining them with images and material relating to the locations and cultures I have experienced in the present in order to explore personal identity through the shifting life experiences I have had in various locations in a multi-cultural environment. My aim has been to construct an experimental system of making that would allow me to express cultural identity through a negotiation of my original culture with other cultures. The result of my research is a series of jewellery-based and hollowware-based objects that explore precious metals and other materials such as plastic and milk powder. This inquiry locates itself within the field of jewellery and metalsmithing within the broader sphere of craft, arts and cultures