A
A MOVING TEMPLE
Photo: Ziyu Wang
Name
Ziyu Wang
Education degree
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Design
Institute
Design, Product and Material
Program
Fashion, Clothing and Textiles - New Landscapes for Change
Year
2026
This project explores protection as a response to inner chaos, and asks how this protective mechanism can be translated into clothing design.
The temple becomes a central reference, not simply as a religious site, but as a spatial system that transforms uncertainty into ritual, image, smoke, and architecture. It offers a larger and older order in which fear, wishes, and instability can be temporarily held.
Rather than copying temple symbols directly, I translate their protective mechanisms into garment language through form, material, and texture. Armour, robes, layering, protector figures, and ritual atmosphere are reinterpreted through the movement of incense smoke — rising, spreading, blurring, and surrounding the body.
Through this process, protection is redefined as a spatial and emotional structure rather than a fixed shell. The garments move between armour and smoke, weight and lightness, structure and atmosphere.
In this sense, the collection becomes a moving temple. It reflects on why people return to ancient places in times of instability: not simply to escape the present, but to search for answers hidden in the deep past.
A moving temple
Smoke and Eaves
Temple Guardian Armour
Soft Armour
Flowing Incense Smoke
From Temple Pattern to 3D Form
This collection translates the protective atmosphere of Chinese temple environments into clothing. Its elements come from armour, robes, guardian figures, eaves, incense smoke, faded surfaces, and the spatial feeling of ritual.
Guided by Jon Kolko’s idea of sensemaking, the project does not follow a linear path from research to form. Instead, it gathers observations from temple spaces and reorganises them through making, allowing new relationships to emerge between structure, material, surface, body, and space.
Face-Tearing Wisdom King in Armour Technique
Luohan Faces on Silk
Luohan Faces on Silk
Luohan Faces on Silk
The temple is therefore not treated as a source of decoration, but as a system of protection. Armour becomes soft textile skin. Smoke becomes volume. Flat temple-derived forms are transformed into three-dimensional garments through the drifting logic of incense smoke.
Face-Tearing Wisdom King in Armour Technique
Face-Tearing Wisdom King in Armour Technique
Images of the Face-Tearing Wisdom King appear on the surface, suggesting the act of tearing open anger to reveal calm beneath.
The project asks how clothing can protect the body emotionally and spatially in relation to inner chaos. Together, the garments form a moving temple around the wearer — a threshold between the body and the outside world.
The Royal Danish Academy supports the Sustainable Development Goals
Since 2017 the Royal Danish Academy has worked with the Sustainable Development Goals. This is reflected in our research, our teaching and in our students’ projects. This project relates to the following UN goal(-s)
