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Jewellery & Metal (MA)

Yibo Wan

Yibo Wan is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on using different mediums to create a narrative. She received a BA in Film and TV production from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. Her multi-discipline background allows her a richer sense of interaction, material and narrative.


Yibo’s inspiration mainly comes from the process of our bodies existing in the world and perceiving the externals. Emphasizing the direct physical and psychological experiences, she is obsessed with creating subtle atmospheres. To her, different materials and forms are simply different mediums to tell a story. Most of her work is delicate and spiritual, which is usually a description and re-creation of feelings she harvests at certain moments. Yibo hopes to strike a vicarious and responsive chord with the audience through the world she creates.


Degree Details

School of Arts & HumanitiesJewellery & Metal (MA)RCA2023 at Truman Brewery

Truman Brewery, F Block, Ground, first and second floors

Yibo is wearing the bracelet she makes.

To Yibo, the state of ephemeral is dynamic rather than static. It contains two opposing states, which are in the trend of imminent transformation. This tendency towards transformation constitutes a cycle that almost dissolves the boundaries of the two opposing states. This concept is inspired by the episode in Shakespeare’s Hamlet where the character Ophelia picks flowers and falls into a stream. The act of her picking flowers represents her purity and good expectations, but simultaneously suggesting beauty is doomed to fade the moment when the flower falls. Ophelia sinks and dies in the water, showing a sense of beauty in sadness. Yibo makes four sets of accessories, trying to depict the tension within the overlap of this transient, melancholy state in the scenario.


All pieces are made of brass, wrapping around the body with calm restraint in a beautiful gesture. Looking like beautiful “shackles” but meanwhile, appendages attached to the body, Ophelia seems to be held in a loop from which there is no escape. The loop is part of her. The transience is herself.

Brass bracelet
Brass bracelet.
Brass bracelet.

Medium:

Brass, perals
Brass headpiece.
Brass headpiece.
Brass headpiece.
Brass headpiece.

Medium:

Brass
Brass structure.

Medium:

Brass, stainless steel wires
Brass structure

Medium:

Brass