Emotive Soil is a design and craft studio with presence in Jingdezhen, Shanghai and London. The studio is established by Chinese designers Yefeng Lyu and Kai Li, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in London. Their collaborative partnership began when they first started their field research at Jingdezhen.
The aim of their design practice is to understand ‘how people create’ in different contexts – by observing how design is entangled with material, culture, geography, and history. Yefeng and Kai do research around local handicraft in different areas of China and make related objects as a method to document what they see, feel, and think. During the design process, the focus of the studio shifts fluidly between the designer, maker, narrator, etc, allowing them to create from diverse perspectives. The studio covers the areas of product design, furniture design, spatial design and installations.