Ruby Yujia Zhai
Silversmithing and Jewellery BA Hons
Glasgow School of Art
Specialisms: Jewelry
Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom
Ruby Yujia Zhai
First Name: Ruby Yujia
Last Name: Zhai
Specialisms: Jewelry
Sectors:
My Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom
University / College: Glasgow School of Art
Course / Program Title: Silversmithing and Jewellery BA Hons
About
I am a jewellery artist and designer whose practice explores the relationship between ornament, sound, materiality, and embodied perception. Working across jewellery, object making, and sensory research, I investigate how materials, gestures, and acts of wearing can generate multisensory experiences on a micro scale. My work draws on the close relationship between jewellery and the body, rethinking adornment as a site of vibration, resonance, rhythm, and touch. Through material experimentation, I seek to reveal the often overlooked sensory and performative dimensions embedded in jewellery making.
“Ornament” refers both to adornment and musical ornamentation. My practice explores perception at a micro scale, treating jewellery as a sensory device worn close to the body. Through materials, making gestures, wearing actions, and multisensory experience, I investigate repetition, rhythm, vibration, resonance, layering, and subtle sounds created through material contact. Tensioned jeweller’s saw blades produce crisp sounds, transforming cutting into performance. Through engraving, I create tiny raised spikes resembling eyelashes or the sensory hairs of a Venus flytrap. These delicate textures encourage touch and bodily awareness, revealing overlooked sensory experiences in jewellery and creating connections between sight, sound, touch, and smell.