Jiarui Wang (b.1998, Shanghai) is a London-based designer, artist and writer. She specialises in publication design, type design, lettering and drawing. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She hasn’t been in any exhibitions or won any awards.
Jiarui Wang 王嘉瑞
I am interested in language, linguistics, literature, and history, through which my work reacts to the socio-political landscape of contemporary China. My academic work intends to diversify the Western-centric graphic design discourse.
ENT is a publication written and designed by me. It stems from my interest in modern Chinese history and in the emotion of shame, and spontaneously developed into an internal exploration of how education, family history and various other Chinese experience shaped me through the form of writing. It is about myself, about writing, about what I was taught, about what I practice, about physical illness, about mental illness, and about all the things that never made sense until this point in my life.
Read more about this project on my website.
To illustrate words with symbolic significance for Chinese social movements, this project synthesises oracle bone scripts, wordplay, calligraphy, exercise books, dissonance, intergenerational trauma, and propaganda art. Sharp in form and obscure in meaning, Sharp Speak lives at the intersection of language, history, symbolism, and dissent.
Read more about this project on my website.
Come And See The Blood in The Streets –
The script reads: ‘Come and see / the blood in the streets / Come and see the blood / in the streets! [请来看 / 街上的血 / 请来看街上的 / 血]’ – an excerpt of ‘I explain a few things’ by Pablo Neruda.
Dé/Sài (Diptych) –
There were no native Chinese words for ‘democracy’ and ‘science’. During the New Cultural Movement of the 1910s, they were referred to as ‘Mr. Democracy’ [德先生, Mr. Dé] and ‘Mr. Science’ [赛先生 Mr. Sài], nicknames based on direct phonetic translations.
This diptych takes the formal qualities of the traditional mounted Fú [福, fortune], displayed upside down on diagonal red squares as a wish for good luck. The work calls for the need for democracy and science in a contemporary setting.
Jasmine Flower –
Jasmine Flower is a famous Chinese folk song title. Despite its frequent use in official events hosted by the Chinese government, Jasmine Flower was also used in a series of lesser-known, Chinese pro-democracy movements in 2011.
Jing Ke –
Jing Ke is a famous Qin dynasty historical figure, famous for his attempted assassination of Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor.
Digestive, born (2022) out of love of biscuits and chatting, is a monthly reflective publication from the Visual Communication BR13 studio at the Royal College of Art. We create content based on the collective theme of the month — designed, collected, and shared on a single piece paper.
Previous issues of Digestive include Digestive, Tunnelling, Leftovers, Collective Mapping and Crusty Sunburn where we explore the gut, crumbs of conversation(s), parasites, tunnel-vision, pockets, the weather, rock pools, tubes, ideal holidays, nostalgia and revel in the sharing of nan’s recipes.
Find out more: digestive.site
2:13PM documents a series of “happenings,” a set of short workshops imitating the loose rules of play. They question the condition of the spaces we inhabit and whether we can utilise them for play. By moulding adult spaces into playgrounds we can enter the magic circle — to forget rules and habits, predetermined social behaviours ad conventions, to loosen up, and to break and build relationships.
Photographed by Ilka Gilvesy.