A Window from North London to the Mountains of China

Community Spotlight

A Window from North London to the Mountains of China

OC.M meets Yi Crafts founder, Yiran Duan, at her North London Studio where she and her colleagues teach their textile heritage

By Sara Arnold

Photos & Video by Immo Klink

Despite London’s diversity, it's rare to have the chance to meet someone from the Chinese Bai ethnic group. Yiran's hometown could not be more different to the grey concrete surroundings of her studio in Neasden, North London where I find a treasure trove of intricate and colourful textiles.

Yiran grew up 2000 metres up on a mountain plateau in Southwestern China on the boundary between Tibet, Laos, Vietnam and the Himalayas. She bravely moved to the UK at the age of 20 to study costume theatre design, having quit her Chinese university. In culture shock, she took a cab from Heathrow to her new home in Cambridge, much to the confusion of the driver. After 9 years in the UK, Yiran runs Yi Crafts which she founded during lockdown in 2020. Here you can find her and her friends in traditional garb, teaching their traditional crafts through workshops. Despite wanting to escape where she’s from, she’s found herself proudly returning to the textile heritage practised by her family for at least 5 generations.

The Bai ethnic group were a separate kingdom some 800 years ago and legend goes that Yiran is the 25th generation of princess. I can believe it as she talks to me with a regal looking hat propped on her head. Yiran talks about the lack of representation of Chinese ethnic minorities in London and the pressure to comply with wearing modern fashionable dress. “This dress was very natural to me in my hometown but when I came here I felt if I wore my traditional dress it would be considered fancy dress. I want to let people understand that all the diverse cultures in China also exist in the UK. I want this underrepresented group to be heard by a wider audience.”

“Our culture is treated as a performative art rather than a living culture. They come to my village and want to be someone else. But for people in my village, this is just everyday life.”

In China, she talks of her culture being exotified by Chinese tourists who play dress up in her village, treating it as a Disneyland: “Our culture is treated as a performative art rather than a living culture. They come to my village and want to be someone else. But for people in my village, this is just everyday life.” Traditions in Yiran’s village are changing rapidly and yet change goes unnoticed and unprotested. Traditional bamboo baskets are now replaced with plastic. She’s passionate about preventing her culture from disappearing.

She laments the lack of appreciation for craft and materials in modern culture. Bai clothes don’t take days or months to make but years - 5, 10 or more. These clothes embody complex knowledge - how to use the looms, the textile techniques and farming knowledge are passed down from generation to generation down the female line. Clothing made by a mother is a way to communicate the story of love between mother and child. But these processes no longer make sense within capitalist logic and hence this generation are not taught their traditions fearing a lack of prosperity. Yiran’s family are disappointed in that respect that she’s chosen this path. She assures them, there’s much more to cloth that meets the eye.

But now, the modern world demands convenience, instant gratification and usefulness.

Yiran’s mission in London is to teach people to slow down. Her mother’s workshop (link to article on events) back in the village lasts just half an hour and people feel they’ve got what they came for. Yiran spends a whole day with the participants of her workshop, which are run regularly in the Yi Crafts North London Studio, appreciating process not product and refocusing on the things that really matter in life.

Here she weaves social bonds, appreciating each stitch and knot.