Showcase

Shadow Play

Boyu Jiang

Profile picture of Boyu Jiang

Boyu Jiang is a London-based textile designer whose work merges material innovation with emotional storytelling. Grounded in sustainability, she works exclusively with biodegradable, recycled, or low-impact material. Her practice often transforms traditionally rigid or technical processes into poetic expressions of memory and emotion.

Boyu Jiang is a London-based textile designer whose work merges material innovation with emotiona...

Inspired by the transient beauty of shadows and the emotional resonance of memory, project Shadow Play explores how textile surfaces evoke personal narratives and sensory experiences. To me, shadows embody inner fears and anxieties as fluid, intangible forms shaped by the unseen. By thoughtfully manipulating textiles, I rearrange and reimagine these symbolic forms, creating poetic dialogues between shadow, material, and meaning. Using biodegradable materials, primarily silk and banana fibres, I experimented extensively with techniques such as laser engraving and screen printing with eco-conscious dyes.

Final work

A sculptural textile piece sits on a flat white surface. It is made of semi-transparent, light-colored woven material with Banana fibers.

Echo in Light

A Printed 3D semi-transparent textile made from a blend of banana fibre and silk. 

The surface is hand screen printed with eco-friendly pigments, then steamed and shaped to create a sculptural texture that casts changing shadows under different angles of light.

A lightweight, semi-transparent textile sculpture hangs from a thin circular wire. The textile is pleated and twisted into a fluid, shell-like form.

Refraction in Fold

Made from a blend of banana fibre and silk, this twisted 3D hanging piece was hand screen printed and hand-pleated.

The surface catches and refracts light from different angles, casting shifting patterns of shadow and reflection.

This image shows a woven textile piece hanging vertically on a wall. The structure is made of strips of laser engraved velvet material.

Encoded Shadow

A laser-engraved and dyed weave using recycled velvet material

This process was developed as a more sustainable alternative to traditional devoré. The etched pattern creates a 3D layered texture just like devoré.

A flat textile piece is displayed on a surface. It is made of square segments arranged in a checkerboard layout.

Anatomy of Shadow

Screen printed onto silk, this piece reconfigures personal images of fear into a grid of fragmented forms.

Through cutting and reassembling the print into a checkerboard layout, the shadow is no longer whole, it becomes ordered, legible, and quietly suspended in structure.

Research and process

Three collages composed of cut-out photographic fragments arranged on paper. The shapes include partial faces and body parts

Collaging the Fear

As part of the early development process, these collages were composed using photographs of light and shadow—captured both digitally and through darkroom chemigram experiments.

These images were cut and rearranged into symbolic forms, giving shape to abstract fears through fragments of contrast and exposure.

A series of process photos shows various stages of textile experimentation.

Work Process

This stage documents my experiments in screen printing and moulding banana fibre silk fabric, laser engraving on velvet, and exploring light refraction through pleated and 3D samples. Each process helped me observe how material, texture, and light interact visually and emotionally.

Share this project

Shadow Play

Inspired by the transient beauty of shadows and the emotional resonance of memory, project Shadow Play explores how textile surfaces evoke personal narratives and sensory experiences. To me, shadows embody inner fears and anxieties as fluid, intangible forms shaped by the unse...

A link to this page has been added to your clipboard