Wednesday 03 July 2019 – Lunchtime Seminar with Kai Ren (Visiting scholar, Jewellery & Metalwork)

Title: The Development and Challenge of the Traditional XiJin crafts in Contemporary China
Speaker: Kai Ren (Visiting scholar at the Sheffield Institute of Arts, Jewellery & Metalwork)

Abstract

In the past 40 years, China’s economy has developed rapidly, but at the same time, it has imperceptibly formed some bad social characteristics – pursuing efficiency, speed and quantity in everything. And this is a kind of distress precisely when wealthy people begin to reflect on traditional culture. The concept of traditional culture is very abstract. The author takes his own speciality as an example to talk about the problems and opportunities faced by the development of XiJin crafts in contemporary China from the traditional process of jewellery.

Gold and silver technology has matured since the Spring and Autumn period of China (770 BC -221 BC), and has developed in later generations. Its processing types include Repousse & chasing, Granulation silver-ball, Filigree, Engraving, Kingfisher feather art and so on. Those are also collectively called ‘XiJin crafts’ in ancient China.

Biography

Kai Ren (born 1982 in Tai Yuan, China) completed his BA and MFA from 2004 to 2011 in CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts). He work as a lecturer for Gemological Institute in China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and is a visiting scholar in Sheffield Institute of Arts from October 2018 to October 2019. His research direction is contemporary jewellery and traditional craft culture. Recently he completed the CNAF (China National Arts Fund) project for ‘XiJin crafts’. Over more than a decade, he discussed and expressed some problems which he find the contemporary and history based through on the crafts practical and theoretical research experience.

1.00PM – 2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 03 JULY 2019
HPO MA Design Studio 16.1.16

Kai Ren is a visiting scholar at the Sheffield Institute of Arts.