Toys for Grown-ups

Hong Kong-based jewelry artist and educator Ching Sze Yin, Cicy has used upcycling strategies in much of her workFor an object outside of the UpCycling Hong Kong zone, go to Things That Talk:Objects from Hong Kong's Beaches.

In Hong Kong, commercial jewelry brands have also been developing large-scale strategies to sustainably source jewelry materials. An important example is niin by Hong Kong-based and UK-trained designer Jeanine Hsu, a brand that has been upcycling for the past 15 years. Since using abalone shells collected from restaurants for the production of jewelry pieces, niin has worked with brass, leather and wood offcut garbage from a variety of companies.

Another example: the two designers Maureen Hung and Connie Tang, who founded the label W;ink atelier, turn pieces of plastic garbage into beautiful earrings, necklace and bracelets.See their necklace in the UpCycling Hong Kong online exhibition Ching Sze-Yin, Cicy and Shirley Lam, on the other hand, make Hong Kong jewelry objects by reframing pieces of plastic.See: Shirley Lam's work on Things That Talk and Ching Sze Yin, Cicy brooch here in the UpCycling Hong Kong online exhibition

Uninterested in commercial success and brand development, Ching Sze Yin, Cicy’s jewelry works and small sculptures incorporate aspects of material and aesthetic playfulness, a theme which the exhibition Toy that she curated in 2016 explicitly engages with. Some of the “toys” that Ching Sze Yin, Cicy makes, were intended for her son.

Other “toys” of her making are for grown-ups. The Made in Hong Kong brooch belongs to the latter category, evoking associations with colored glass pieces in a kaleidoscope. Instead of using a glass shield to prevent the glass pieces from falling out of their silver setting, Ching Sze Yin, Cicy repurposed a piece from the lid of a plastic food container. The product label “Made in Hong Kong” is written in semi-transparent script all over the piece, adding another layer of meaning to this playfully complex brooch.

Want to read about another artist that uses plastic upcycling in his jewelry pieces? Click below. Or, move to the next step: Tutti Frutti for Recyclers