Runyu Li

A glass pebble made with caddisfly and local crafters.

Runyu's practice is in social innovation design, interactive installations, and product design.

He is keen to find the balance between social change and people's relationships and find design possibilities from it. In the design process, he tends to research on-site with local communities, industry, and materials.

As a designer, he believes that we should not only focus on the experience but also on how to make and who is making the products at the same time, thus designing the production of a relationship rather than a single product.

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass - Paul Laurence Dunbar

'CADI' is a set of glass artifacts made together by Haslemere's glass artist, jewelry crafter, and a kind of insect called caddisfly. In a practical way, It explores the possibility, as an example, of how we can make a bio-friendly symbiotic production system with wildlife, and how to construct local authentic uniqueness.

The project has connected the local wildlife and the crafters through the combination of techniques. The single-layered debris-made cases made by caddisflies are hard to make from humans. Caddisflies' cases are brought into the fusing glass technique, thus bringing us unique glass artifacts. Symbolically, it represents the local natural environment because the caddisflies are various and distinctive in different locations and habitats.

Sentimentally, People hate or love insects. The artefact as a discursive object provides us a chance to show our attitude and talk about it. Looking at the delicate object, should or not we keep the negative impression on the keystone of the living stream? The design gives us another way of perception of how we deem the creature.

The production of 'CADI' is catalysing the local breeding system that would be helpful for the local bio-diversity. The breeding system increases the numeration of caddisfly, and the caddisfly can provide a microhabitat for other creatures in the stream habitat system, and also increase their abundance of them. Thus, the production will provide positive feedback to the stream habitats.

In the glass river

Inspired by the poem and the habitat of caddisflies, the form comes from the pebbles in the water, shiny in the stream, with caddisflies living under the pebbles.

Possibilities of caddisflies

Caddisflies have the potential to increase the local abundance of creatures. And they can also produce a kind of silk that could be used in the medical industry or laboratory. But unfortunately, there has been not so much experience to breed them.

If we can build a local breeding system for caddisflies with products and let them go back into the wild, we can help them to build shelters for other creatures and clean the fresh water.

To achieve this goal, I have consulted researchers in economic aquatic insects and the taxonomy of caddisflies.

Collaborating with glass artist.

By collaborating with the local glass artist, Sandy, the founder of the Rock and Shards from Haslemere, we have developed a specific method to keep the caddisflies' tube inside the glass and keep its vivid shape.

Runyu Li

In the glass river

Possibilities of caddisflies

Collaborating with glass artist.

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Royal College of Art