Pan Miao

In order to design modern jewelry with Chinese cultural characteristics, one should carefully study traditional Chinese metal art, grasp the skills and techniques involved and get to know the social and cultural background against which they were born. To learn techniques is to learn the culture behind them. We should put to use modern aesthetic ideas and design concepts to combine tradition and modernity in our works. We should include traditional handicraft culture in teaching practices, students’ practices and theoretical researches, hence establishing professional teaching system with distinctive features in the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University.

Pan has been focusing on theoretical research on jewelry culture and metal art culture. Her doctoral dissertation was A Comparative Study on Form and Decoration of Metal Jewelry, and MA thesis was On Metal Techniques of Bai Nationality from the Perspective of Regional Culture Characteristics.

Pan paid much attention to anthropological research and field study. She collected first-hand materials for academic research. She studied traditional metal art culture in different regions and ethnic groups. As project leader for Research on Uyghur Filigree Jewelry Technique in Xinjiang (part of Qipai Intangible Cultural Heritage Research and Protection Fund Project in Art and Science Research Centre in Tsinghua University), she conducted extensive researches on the cultural context of metal art in both China and the West.