Xinyi Chen
(b.1992. June, China)
Merseyside, United Kingdom
Xinyi Chen is an award winning designer maker based in England, specializing in working with reclaimed electronic components and silver mounts, turning them into wearable art since 2016.
She returned to the bench as a maker after working as a fashion buyer, senior jewellery consultant, and photographer. She gained a BA in Art Design in China, specialising in jewellery and silversmithing, and began exploring contemporary jewellery with her extravagant collection ‘New Era of Crown’. Following her Master’s degree at Central Saint Martins, she launched her brand EÈ CHAN to further her career and practice.
Her work has been included internationally at prestigious events such as Goldsmiths' Fair(London), MAD About Jewelry(New York), TALENTE Handwerk & Design and BKV Prize (Munich), Royal Treasure Museum(Lisbon), Museum of Palazzo Mocenigo(Venice), and London Museum Docklands.
Xinyi transforms discarded electronic components into jewellery she affectionately calls ‘Artificial Intelligems’. Drawing from her childhood memories of her mother’s work as a computer practitioner, Xinyi is captivated by the shapes, colours, textures, and precise structures of E-waste. Her work questions what these modern signs and digital remnants reveal about us and our future.
Her process combines traditional crafts with digital techniques, innovatively setting E-waste into silver mounts, reimagining materials from tiny diodes to vintage capacitors from our daily electronic devices — sourced from the WEEE Recycling Centre. By altering the fate of these discarded elements, she challenges fine jewellery and invites us to reconsider our relationship with technology, urging a return to the tangible world amidst our digital lives.
Award
2025 Gold Award & The NAJ & BATF Award, The Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Council
2025 Bronze Award in Conceptual Jewellery, The Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Council
2024 Emerging Business Bursary, Goldsmiths' Fair, London, United Kingdom
2024 Winner, Preziosa Young Design Competition, Florence, Italy
2024 Finalist, Emerging Jewellery Brand of the Year, Professional Jeweller Awards, United Kingdom
2023 Rising Stars 30 Under 30, Retail Jeweller's, London, United Kingdom
2023 Second Award and Special Prize, Venice Design Week Jewellery Selection, Venice, Italy
2023 Honorable Mention of the Cheongju International Craft Competition, Cheongju, Korean
2023 Finalist, Friedrich Becker Prize, Germany
2023 Finalist, Designer of the Year, The National Association of Jewellers, United Kingdom
2023 Finalist, Talente Masters of the Future, Munich, Germany
2022 Winner, Bright Young Gems, Eco-Heroes , London, United Kingdom
