Lou Xiaomeng is a Chinese jewellery maker who is currently based in London. She graduated from China University of Geosciences and holds an FGA GIC Jewellery Appraisal certificate.
She seeks inspiration from her own experience and insight into the world. The entry point of her work is very subtle. She is trying to change the way people look at things.
Lou’s project is related to the subconscious, tools, and the self.
It explores the connection between the human subconscious and the material world on a philosophical level.
From ancient times to modern society, people have been making and using tools. As residents of the modern world, most of the time people are receivers, accepting the function, shape, colour and touch of an object. However, our experiences, memories, cognition, and emotions in dealing with these objects are often ignored. What we ignore has something to do with our subconscious.
Therefore, Lou takes a number of tools from her experience to change people's perspective on things by considering emotions and behaviours and offering a new perspective and a new function (a psychological function) to the viewer. At the same time her jewellery has a unique relationship with the human body. The wearer reflects their subconscious through the wearing process.
When I look around the home, I find that many old photos in my home are framed. I think they are especially precious. Although these recorded moments are far away, I remember them very clearly. Now, we have changed the way of storing photos. We prefer to upgrade the iCloud space. Many precious moments are buried in these storage spaces and then forgotten by ourselves.
I hope this piece of jewelry can help us who can be recorded by multimedia tools to reflect on which moments are precious.
The cup reminds me that the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is to have a cup of water to wake me up, or when I'm sleepy, but I have to wake up, I'll drink a cup of coffee.
But I'm actually a caffeine-insensitive person. Sometimes I drink coffee at night and sleep well, or I'm still sleeping when I want to do my homework.
So I was thinking that maybe it didn't work for me at all, but my mind was dominating me
Remove the original function of the cup So I replaced the liquid in the cup with a mirror. The cup lost its function of drinking water, but it could meet our needs for soberness
The alarm clock reminds me of when I was little. Sometimes I don't want to go to school In the morning, my brain often selectively blocks the sound of the alarm clock. However, when I have something important in the next day, I will wake up before the alarm clock rings. At these times, the alarm clock loses its original function. It was the subconscious of my brain that replaced it.
With this piece of jewelry, I convert the alarm clock into glasses. Through the feeling of being haunted by time, I look at the tool of the alarm clock from a new perspective and realized my subconsciousness.
My friends and my parents all like to collect used plastic bags and often choose a space to store them. In fact, not only plastic bags but also my mother and their friends are addicted to buying daily necessities. I am curious about this phenomenon. So I went to observe when they would stop this behavior. I found that when the space they selected was filled, they stopped collecting. I think this behavior gives them a sense of security, and it is related to their unconsciousness.
I used overlapping plastic bags to create a space to state this behavior. I hope the wearer can feel the subconsciousness during the process of rotating every piece.
