Diancui is a traditional Chinese craft in which jewelry is decorated with kingfisher feathers, but the process of making it is brutal as it requires the feathers to be taken alive, resulting in the death of the kingfisher. The craft is now banned but still controversial because of its high artistic value. With the poster, I wanted to publicize the two-sided nature of this craft, both the beauty and the cruelty. Perhaps rooted in a dissection of the ‘folds of civilization’ - when we marvel at the subtleties of traditional craftsmanship in museums, we often selectively forget the brutal truths that are buried in the dust of history.
