Xuemei Meng believes that the combination of aesthetic values and humanism makes jewellery more meaningful. She is interested in vintage jewellery, which for her symbolises the splendour of the times it was made, and she believes that its historicity makes it unique.
She says, ‘I usually spend a lot of time researching and I have a keen interest in historical and fantasy stories. As a child, my father used to tell me stories from Chinese mythology, such as the one about the crow with three legs as the sun in the sky. The 'sun crow' flies slowly through the sky during the day and returns to a tree to sleep at night – there were nine such' sunbirds' in the world. I guess the sun also needed to work a shift system.
When I have completed my research for a project, I usually spend more time choosing materials and techniques. In the past six years, I have been learning different processes and trying out different materials, including wood, metal, ceramics, and glass. I have learnt that it is possible to add colour to both ceramics and metal, but the chemistry and production processes of enamel and glaze are very different.
In Swedish author Fredrik Beckman's Min mormor hälsar och säger förlåt (My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises), the author describes a fantasy kingdom that Elsa and her grandmother created together when she was a child, which left a very fond memory. That warms me. I decided to turn stories with magical colours into cultural and creative products, in the form of jewellery. Therefore, I started with Chinese legend stories - the culture I know best.
I chose to focus on Dunhuang, an oasis in the desert in Western China, to complete my graduation project, Explore the Sand Dunes – Civilization and Traces. Dunhuang is located near the Taklamakan Desert, which has less than 50mm of rain and 2,486mm of evaporation every year, making it one of the most arid places in China. But out of this desert has emerged not only the Dunhuang Oasis, which has existed for 2,000 years, but also the Mogao Caves, a world-famous religious and cultural sanctuary.
It has been predicted that ‘the future of the earth is a desert’. From the birth of a race/civilisation to its demise, the tangible world will die, and the invisible civilisation will live on (and be passed on in other ways). The exploration of the world, and the search for knowledge, will eventually lead people to the ultimate freedom. I believe this will be an exciting new start.’
