The Nephrite Passage

“The Nephrite Passage” is a body-jewellery artwork that investigates the revitalisation of Chinese–Thai nephrite lifeways through the framework of the Maritime Jade Route. The work approaches nephrite not simply as a precious material, but as a cultural object shaped by trade, belief, taste, memory, and human relationships across China, Thailand, and Southeast Asia. Archaeological studies suggest that nephrite was among the early ornamental materials associated with maritime exchange networks in Southeast Asia, spanning approximately 3,000 years of prehistoric interaction. Beads are likewise understood as a fundamental form of bodily adornment and as evidence of interregional contact and exchange. The artwork employs cut nephrite beads hand-strung with black and grey hair to form a body ornament that embraces the upper torso. The body is conceived as a symbolic map of cultural movement, while the sequence of beads creates a score-like visual rhythm. Rather than producing audible sound, the work engages musical thinking through repetition, interval, pause, silence, and bodily resonance. Hair functions as a line of life, ancestral memory, and temporal passage, while the green nephrite beads act as accents of encounter, marking the movement of materials, beliefs, and cultural meanings between regions. The project also acknowledges that cultural exchange is not seamless or equal, but layered through differences in history, power, interpretation, and regional agency. Southeast Asia is therefore approached not merely as a passage between larger civilisations, but as an active site of material transformation and cultural negotiation. The creative outcome proposes nephrite jewellery as a silent, rhythmic medium through which history, body, memory, sonic imagination, and the creative economy may be brought into dialogue.