Naiyue Zhang

Naiyue Zhang is an interdisciplinary artist focusing mainly on metal and interactive installations. Naiyue obtained her BA from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, China. She is graduating from the Jewellery and Metal MA programme at the Royal College of Art. Her works revolve around the relationship between the human body and jewellery.

Naiyue’s creative scope lies in exploring her own identity, that of others, and the relationship between these two in the context of social phenomena. She draws visitors into her world across domains and dimensions, so that they can experience the uniqueness of what happens there. 

Naiyue Zhang’s project focuses on the matchmaking corner: one form of matchmaking in China. Exploring the formation of traditional Chinese matchmaking and the psychological outcomes of this method of matchmaking. “Looking?” builds upon Chinese matchmaking and discusses changes of this social phenomena under the influence of an era of digital data collection. Over time, people can be replaced by a few messages on the dating corner and the only thing that can filter them is their own judgment. 

Naiyue divides the matchmaking into two parts: A person, a giver, with just one-sided information who provides some of the data in the matchmaking corner and the other person, a seeker, who brings their own information to the matchmaking corner. Her project revolves around the relationship between the giver and the seeker under the term of big data.

Naiyue metaphorizes matchmaking with unboxing. Objects resenting the ‘Givers’ are hidden in a Blind Box with only a of the object shadow visible, whereas seekers (in this circumstance the viewers) interact with their own parametric curves through a Grasshopper system designed by Naiyue. Finally, the viewer selects a giver according to their own judgment, and is able to create a unique piece of jewelry for themselves – a token from Naiyue’s contemporary version of matchmaking corner. Together, a new matchmaking corner has formed.