Ruotong Wang 王若彤

We construct space with our bodies and express emotions within it.

About Ruotong Wang

Ruotong Wang is a multidisciplinary artist and designer from China. Her work focuses on humanwear, and sculpture. At the Royal College of Art, she is venturing into new research directions by incorporating more wearable pieces into her creations, with a focus on exploring the possibilities of extension and contraction between the human body and architectural space.

She has developed a system for creating wearable pieces, using modeling and 3D printing to create clothing frameworks that give new meaning to the relationship between the body and space, making it more expansive. However, this goes beyond the realm of traditional fashion, which is why she chose to study fashion as a Master's student at the Royal College of Art. Throughout her design career in recent years, her predominantly structure-engineered design processes have explored various themes, including space compression and emotional interaction in digital gaming spaces.

I developed unique clothing silhouettes and clothing frameworks through structural experiments.

My project explores new structural frameworks by studying architectural space and the human body, resulting in a specific set of assembly characteristics for garment structures. The initial inspiration came from a series of architectural photographs in Iceland by architect David Hugo, where the use of light and shadows captivated me. They expressed their depiction of architecture and landscapes through unique perspectives.

During the design process, I developed unique garment silhouettes and garment frameworks through structural experiments, giving new meaning to the relationship between the human body's skin and its surroundings, creating more expansive spatial structures.

Within the space, various body postures interact with the walls, floors, and the overall space, forming different shapes and angles. This also implies that space can be freely deployed, allowing for all possibilities of expansion and contraction.

This relationship between the human body and space is the direction I am interested in exploring. We construct space with our bodies and express emotions within it. Traditional architectural space and conventional materials can limit the arrangement of the body within the space.

By rethinking the components of "garment pattern connections" and designing more stretchable elements, I construct garment frameworks that allow for better expression of the human body within architectural space.

Cover shot in Candlewick, London, June 8, 2023

"Light and Shadow", photographed at alexandra palace Photography by CHENYU WEI Model: ZIJIE LI

I photographed some construction sites and they were mostly under construction. So there are a lot of these scaffolding and cranes on site. I wanted to extract some new structural frames to develop my garment.

I bought a lot of materials for this project. They were more supportive materials, by twisting them for fit testing, such as rubber, Eva foam, wood panel pieces, latex, cowhide, etc. I also chose pvc and resin rods, etc. for frame building experiments.

Connection modeling and concept demonstration

Modeling process

Medium:

Photosensitive resin，Cowhide and sheepskin，Aluminum alloy

Ruotong Wang 王若彤

Medium:

Social

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Royal College of Art