Yu Cai

Yu Cai is a textile mixed-media student. She is originally from Beijing, China. After studying fashion design as her undergraduate major at Savannah College of Art and Design in the U.S., she found that textile was the fundamental key to fashion design. Therefore, she dedicated her time at RCA to develop textiles that can drive the form of garments.

Re-main // Eternal Ephemerality

My current project explores ephemeral materials and moments. By seeing the changing of ephemeral materials, I can see how life goes to nothingness and meaninglessness in a particular way. To be more specific, we all know that the only certainty for each ice cube is being evaporated in the end. However, each moment and status is various and unpredictable in the transformation process, you will never know how each ice will affect or change the surroundings. It reflected human’s life. I believe every ephemeral material has its own philosophy. For everything in the world, death is the only certainty. Yet, those ephemeral and unpredictable moments will differentiate every individual.

There are six ephemeral sources I used in my work which are ice, water, sunlight, Polaroid films, fire, and wax. All trace of these sources remains after the transformation process, to document their evanescent moments eternally.

In this project, I produced a fashion collection with 6 looks’ garments as the final outcome, to let my audiences discover the ephemeral and momentary insights in their lives.

Process and Material — Music: I Aphex Twin