Yiru Chen

With a background of fashion, Yiru is a textile storyteller who aspires to become a textile art therapist. She explored the healing effect of handworks during the process of self-taught hand-knitting and crocheting.

Influenced by psychology, Yiru is continuously exploring the diversity of living beings and human nature. Whilst her body dwells in “reality”, her mind lives in a spiritual space with a plethora of creatures, from which she draws her inspiration. Yiru aims to pull her imaginary world into reality, communicating them through handcraft materials. It is a self-healing process where she can fight back against the suffocating strictness of the world.

REBORN // Knitting Warrior

In this project I am exploring and investigating how knitting and crochet can be used to express the internalisation and externalisation of myself. At the same time trying to balance the conflict between these two through my creating processes.

Looking back on my growth path, it was actually the process of internalisation and externalisation interacting with each other. When I was young I was always alone, living in my own world. As I matured, I realised that no matter how I tried to escape from the pain and cruelty of reality, it was always there and would inevitably affect me.

The process of making works is also a process of discovering and accepting oneself. It is my way to be alone with the reality. In this project, you will see how I use knitting and crochet as a medium, combined with my unique working method to tell my own story, it might be yours as well.