ABOUT
qīqíqǐqì Studio is a creative brand working with natural lacquer, focusing on the development of everyday objects with strong tactile presence and distinctive structures, including sculptural horsehair brushes and handmade lacquered paper. The studio was founded in London in 2024 by Miao and Siying.
Starting with touch, we shift the way people come into contact with objects. This relationship is not one-directional: as we use objects, they in turn shape our behaviours, habits, and sensibilities.
Some works are designed for daily use, while others move beyond fixed functions. Rather than pointing only to utility, they unfold through repeated contact, gradually reshaping how objects are perceived and engaged with.
TEAM MEMBERS
Miao Tan ARWS
Artist
Miao Tan is an artist working across objects, sculpture, and material experimentation.
With a background in painting and sculpture, she has a high sensitivity to materials. Her practice is grounded in intuitive interaction with materials, responding to their tactility, movement, and unpredictability. Texture, weight, and structural behaviour act as generative forces that participate in and shape the gradual formation of each object. For her, making is a living, ongoing process. Each work unfolds through direct interaction, with form continually negotiated through action, failure, and adjustment.
Miao was educated in both China and the UK, holding a BA in Oil Painting from Minzu University of China and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (RCA). She is an Associate Member of the Royal Watercolour Society (ARWS) and a recipient of the 2023 New Graduate Award.
Siying Cui
Visual Director
Siying is responsible for the visual, spatial, and discursive articulation of the studio’s practice.
Drawing on her background in branding and spatial design, Siying develops qīqíqǐqì’s visual language and perceptual structures, including graphic systems and forms of communication. Through careful attention to scale, distance, and rhythm, she organises objects within coherent perceptual frameworks across both physical space and printed media, allowing the work to be approached and understood with greater clarity and sensorial presence.
Siying holds a BA in Environmental Design from Beijing University of Technology and an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art. She has worked in brand design, book design, and spatial design, and her practice moves across design and art, maintaining an open and flexible approach between the two.
qīqíqǐqì welcome conversations with designers, researchers, institutions, and stores interested in collaboration or carrying our work.
For inquiries, please contact:
CONTACT
