Her first breakthrough came with a series called False Memories . She collected 2,000 counterfeit Ming vases from night markets across Southeast Asia—the ones tourists buy for $5—and smashed them. Then she reconstructed the shards into a single, 8-foot-tall map of the South China Sea, using 24-karat gold kintsugi (the Japanese art of repair). The work, Broken Sovereignty , sold at a Christie’s auction in 2015 for $480,000. But more importantly, it announced a manifesto:

“I realized I was a professional ghost,” she tells me over bitter kopi in her private archive. “I was selling the skin of my culture without the pulse.”

“I wanted to draw robots,” she laughs. “My grandmother said a true artist draws the wind. I said, ‘What if the wind is a robot?’”

Royal Asian Studio - Jiang Youyi - The Super Ar... Online

Her first breakthrough came with a series called False Memories . She collected 2,000 counterfeit Ming vases from night markets across Southeast Asia—the ones tourists buy for $5—and smashed them. Then she reconstructed the shards into a single, 8-foot-tall map of the South China Sea, using 24-karat gold kintsugi (the Japanese art of repair). The work, Broken Sovereignty , sold at a Christie’s auction in 2015 for $480,000. But more importantly, it announced a manifesto:

“I realized I was a professional ghost,” she tells me over bitter kopi in her private archive. “I was selling the skin of my culture without the pulse.” Royal Asian Studio - Jiang Youyi - The super ar...

“I wanted to draw robots,” she laughs. “My grandmother said a true artist draws the wind. I said, ‘What if the wind is a robot?’” Her first breakthrough came with a series called