Materiality of Fear
Yangzi Wang is a surface textile and new material designer. She completed an MA Textile/Material Futures course at Central Saint Martins having previously graduated from BA (Hons) Textile Design, specializing in weave and print. Now she experiments in different ways to combine several materials together with different hand made skills, discovering new ways to produce textile related products, challenge the limits of both handmade and machine-made.
She investigated how can people materialize attraction of fear through materials?
Fear is a natural survival mechanism, an instinctive response to a potential danger which is important for the survival of all species. Yangzi is fascinated by peoples interest in and attraction toward fearful situations. She investigates why some people more prone than others to inducing a sense of fear?
In this project she tried to engineer a fear attraction, embedding fear within physical materials. Incorporating textures, forms and patterns commonly associated with phobias and instinctive human fear, she aims to explore the fine line between fear and attraction. Her work aims to encompass a sense of fear but also be highly seductive and alluring.
Her designs are aimed at the celebrity or performer who wants to attract people’s attention. She has used fashion garments as a platform for gauging a reaction. Fashion for her has long since been used as a testing ground for new ideas and a stage for future fantasy.
Yangzi is setting up a studio in Hangzhou, China, for the purpose of teaching, experimentation and technical exchange, as well as design project collaboration.
Text & images: Yangzi Wang
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