Xiaoyan Chen - UK/China
Xiaoyan Chen
Designer biography:
Xiaoyan Chen is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is informed by her personal experiences and observations shaped by a gendered social environment. Working across interactive objects and jewellery, she explores the relationship between the body, gesture, and material as a way to reflect on lived realities that are often normalised yet rarely questioned. Her works require physical engagement—such as rotating, unfolding, or handling—inviting viewers to activate meaning through touch and movement. These gestures are deliberately constructed, drawing from everyday bodily actions and translating them into forms that carry metaphorical and critical implications. Through subtle interaction, Chen embeds irony and ambiguity into her work, creating space for audiences to sense, rather than be directly told, underlying tensions and contradictions. By placing the body at the centre of her work, Xiaoyan Chen addresses how everyday gestures are shaped by social expectations, particularly in relation to gender. The act of touching, rotating, or unfolding each piece is not only a way of engaging with the work, but also a reflection of how the body is guided, restricted, or conditioned in daily life. Through these interactions, she invites viewers to become aware of these subtle influences and to reconsider the assumptions they may have taken for granted.
Collection concept:
Xiaoyan Chen’s Chastity collection explores how traditional chastity norms continue to shape women’s lives today, using narrative jewellery to unpack their hidden, enduring harm. The series spans interconnected themes. An interactive mouth lock physically silences the wearer: its zipper opens to reveal a static, trapped sound wave, mirroring how survivors of sexual violence are pressured into silence, shamed rather than supported when they speak out. A barbed-wire ring with a red ruby mimics scabbed wounds, drawing on ancient purity myths to expose how they trap women in abusive marriages. A wedding invitation hides a chastity certificate, its cracked enamel satirizing the unfair purity demands behind perfect wedding imagery. A camera necklace with a rotating lens critiques narrow media stereotypes tied to chastity tropes. A half-open book with body motifs addresses vague sex education that leaves women ashamed of their bodies. A hair clip with an eye cage symbolises how these norms shrink women’s life horizons, clipping their access to education and opportunity. Each aged, metal-based piece blends traditional craft with interactive design, inviting tactile reflection on these outdated, enduring ideals.
