Contemporary Chinese Craft

About

YIQI Culture and Craft is an independent, project-based initiative dedicated to supporting traditional craft practices through contemporary design and collaborations.

Many heritage crafts are dying every year due to a lack of craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation. Low financial viability of heritage craft has been one of the main causes of the discontinuation in today’s highly industrialised society. Many countries have been putting effort in reversing the dismal trend. For example, Crafts Council  is the UK’s national charity for craft. It helps the craft sector by supporting local craft businesses and providing training opportunities, as well as practical business resources. Crafts Council does a great job categorising the level of urgency of disappearance of individual heritage craft.

You can find out more here: https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/categories-of-risk/

In China, it is not until recently that the nation paid attention to the preservation of its rich and diverse intangible cultural heritage. The government is now playing an active role in identifying valuable crafts and showcasing them to the public. 

You can find out more about China’s rich heritage crafts here: 
https://www.ihchina.cn/
https://www.fyrhome.cn/

The initiative was founded by Yiyuan Hu following her training in Fashion Design Womenswear at Central Saint Martins. Her final-year collection explored traditional British chair caning techniques, learned directly from an experienced female craftsperson and reinterpreted through contemporary womenswear design. She utilised boning instead of canes, along with silk sourced in China in the making to give the traditional craft a fresh look. This hands-on experience shaped YIQI’s core philosophy: meaningful craft preservation requires both respect for tradition and creative adaptation.

You can see this collection here:
https://yiyuanhudesign.com/la-femme-à-la-peau-cannage

Building on this approach, YIQI works primarily with traditional craftspeople in rural regions of China, many of whom belong to minority communities and practise crafts passed down through generations. Through project-based collaborations, YIQI supports craftspeople by developing contemporary applications for their skills, facilitating production, and connecting craft knowledge with new cultural and commercial contexts.

YIQI operates through small-scale, carefully considered projects, prioritising long-term relationships, cultural sensitivity, and incremental impact. The initiative believes that even modest interventions, when rooted in trust, design knowledge, and mutual respect, can contribute to the continued relevance and sustainability of traditional crafts.