Crowns of Glass
Crowns of Glass : Yang Guifei, 2024
Flameworked Borosilicate Glass
42 x 60 x 28cm
The glass headdresses hold a dreamlike, illusory quality with its fragile presence. Even a photo of it feels as though it requires gentle handling, each night when I leave the studio, I am half-worried that it may melt away with the morning dew. This fragility has a powerful effect on my models; initially, they’re thrilled to wear it, imagining themselves as princesses. Yet, once worn, they stiffen, subtly overtaken by a quiet, psychological weight due to the fear it may slide off, fall and shatter into a thousand pieces. It brings to mind the concept of “Arrival Fallacy”—the belief that achieving a goal will bring lasting happiness, only for the happiness to dissolve to dust once they achieve their goal.
Each headdress is inspired by the headdresses worn by women of rank in ancient China. Headgear traditionally indicated social status and power, and formal ceremonies like the Guan Li celebrated one's maturity and readiness to take on societal roles. For elite women, the headdress embodied authority but also fragility, reminding us that this privilege came with the constant threat of losing favour. The delicate designs on the Crowns of Glass shows the precarious balance between beauty and constraint, as if the wearer’s identity and value are bound to the object itself, evoking reverence but also a latent unease.