Artist Highlight - Seren Cheng

1. Door handles, lift buttons and similar objects are usually treated as background. What made them emotionally significant for you?

Objects such as door handles and buttons are designed and manufactured to  accommodate human use as conveniently as possible. When I interact with them, I am  touching forms that have been carefully shaped in service of people. Through them, I  sense a kind of mediated humanity. The engineering and design embedded within these  objects create a comfortable distance between myself and others, allowing me to connect  with human presence indirectly through the object.

2. You mention turning your attention to objects when you feel nervous in crowds. How  did that private habit become a starting point for jewellery?

This was not actually the starting point of the collection. It was only after I had begun  making the jewellery that I realised I had been using this way of looking at objects to ease  my nervousness in crowded situations.

My interest in industrial components and their structures felt very natural to me, and before  starting the project I had not consciously reflected on why I was drawn to them. The  process of making the jewellery prompted me to think more deeply about these tendencies  and experiences. In that sense, the work became a way of developing a greater  awareness of myself and understanding the role these objects had been playing in my life.

3. The work transforms transitional architecture into wearable pieces. What changes  when something public, fixed and functional becomes intimate and worn?

What changes is my awareness of the space. In everyday life, we interact with  architectural elements in order to fulfil a need, whether that is opening a door or reaching  another floor. Our attention is directed towards the destination rather than the space itself,  and the presence of the space is often taken for granted.

By transforming these elements into jewellery, I retell them through a different language.  Jewellery's ability to carry personal meaning lends these objects an additional emotional  significance. This shift encourages me to approach the space more consciously, to  observe it, and to notice the traces of human activity embedded within it. Through this act  of attention, I become more aware of the space itself and of the ways it continually  supports and guides my movements through it.

4. Your practice often looks at relationships beyond direct human interaction. What  kind of relationship do you think exists between a person and an object they touch  every day?

As I mentioned earlier, objects are a medium through which I experience human activity  and production. The objects we touch every day carry traces of our lives, recording  repeated gestures and encounters over time.

At the same time, they also reveal the qualities of their materials. Metal accumulates  scratches, while wood gradually becomes smoother through touch. These marks are both  traces of human presence and expressions of the material itself.

For me, the relationship between a person and an everyday object is one of mutual  influence. We leave traces on objects, while materials respond to our presence in different  ways. These interactions remind me that I am not an isolated individual, but part of a larger  network of relationships, both within human society and the wider natural world.

5. Jewellery is usually associated with adornment, but here it also acts like a fragment  of the built environment. Do you want the pieces to feel decorative, architectural, or  somewhere in between?

For me, beauty is a primary aspect of jewellery, and one of its important functions. I want  the pieces to attract attention and encourage people to recall or reconsider their own  experiences of interacting with space. In that sense, an aesthetically satisfying form is  necessary.

The term ‘decorative’ is often understood as the opposite of ‘functional’, but in my work  decoration is part of the function. The visual appeal of the pieces draws people in and  creates the possibility for reflection.

As for their architectural quality, it comes from my choice to reference the points where  people most directly encounter the built environment. The architectural language is  therefore a consequence of the source material rather than the original aim of the work.

6. What would you like people to feel the next time they press a button, hold a rail or  push a door open?

If the work encourages someone to pay attention to these small interactions and  reconsider their relationship with the space around them, then it has achieved its purpose.  Even a brief awareness that these interactions exist, and that we are constantly being  supported and guided by our surroundings, would be meaningful to me.