Yefeng Lyu

Yefeng Lyu is a Chinese designer who gradually transfers to multidisciplinary craftsmen/artists. She enjoys making and understanding crafts in their skills, tradition, and broader context. Now she involves bamboo, ceramic, and glass in her practices.

She is co-founder of EMOTIVE SOIL, a design and craft studio based in Jingdezhen.

Value transfer by dialogue with past waste

At the beginning of the project, out of my interest in natural processes and crafts, I went to collect sea glass and look for ceramic relics. Then I found that time, nature, or human use can add value again these old wastes. Modern production and recycling processes have significantly improved as people become more environmentally conscious, While past waste can reveal a specific place or moment in history. Therefore, this project wants to explore the value of past waste for sustainability and educational reasons.

Website Of A Speculate Organization – The group PLAYFUL MINING RECYCLE organizes activities to clean glass from the River Thames foreshore and tell the story of the London and glass through a full set of designed tools/uniforms/books.

Glass Mining License – Create a new speculative license for the City Miner. This can be a re-interpretation of the existing mudlark licence but focusing not on archaeological protection.

Uniform – Waterproof vest

Context – Central London used to be a very industrial area, and the city was built around the river. So here can find a large amount of glass from the 19th century, and these glasses can reveal the technique develop from mouth-blown (hand-made) to machine-made (both semi and fully automatic).