DUALITY Inflatable Purple Earrings by Xinyi Chen
'Navigating the Duality of Real and Digital Worlds’ Electronic components have a special place in this jeweller’s heart– she calls them ‘Artificial Intelligems’. She is fascinated with their shapes, textures, colors, precise structures, digital spirituality, and hidden beauty.
Through a combination of traditional settings skills and contemporary jewellery-making techniques, including CAD and electroplating, Xinyi Chen alters the fate of discarded electronic components into wearable art, transporting them from landfill to jewellery boxes. These ready-to-wear earrings navigate the duality between the tangible and the virtual world, offering a new way of experiencing digital awe.
Her work highlights the boundary between the physical and virtual worlds, reflecting on our relationship with smartphones, social media, and apps. Maintaining integrity and balance between our real and digital lives is essential. “I hope that people can return to this earth’s reality from the virtual, rethinking what it means to live in this rapidly changing world, and embrace your dual personas with care and authenticity,” she explains.
Made from PVD coated sterling silver and E-waste computer components to create colourful, playful and lightweight statement earrings. 4cm in length
The Designer
Xinyi Chen is an award winning designer maker based in England, specializing in working with reclaimed electronic components and silver mounts, turning them into wearable art since 2016.
She returned to the bench as a maker after working as a fashion buyer, senior jewellery consultant, and photographer. She gained a BA in Art Design in China, specialising in jewellery and silversmithing, and began exploring contemporary jewellery with her extravagant collection ‘New Era of Crown’. Following her Master’s degree at Central Saint Martins, she launched her brand EÈ CHAN to further her career and practice.
Xinyi transforms discarded electronic components into jewellery she affectionately calls ‘Artificial Intelligems’. Drawing from her childhood memories of her mother’s work as a computer practitioner, Xinyi is captivated by the shapes, colours, textures, and precise structures of E-waste. Her work questions what these modern signs and digital remnants reveal about us and our future.
Her process combines traditional crafts with digital techniques, innovative setting E-waste into silver mounts, reimagining materials from tiny diodes to vintage capacitors from our daily electronic devices — sourced from the WEEE Recycling Centre. By altering the fate of these discarded elements, she challenges fine jewellery and invites us to reconsider our relationship with technology, urging a return to the tangible world amidst our digital lives.
Jewellery Care
To look after your jewellery we recommend it must not be worn in the bath, shower or whilst swimming and we advise any perfume or hairspray is to be applied before putting on your jewellery to avoid contact with chemicals and cosmetics. Please remove your jewellery before engaging in practical activities such as sport.
Please get in touch to enquire about our cleaning services and restoring surface finishes.
