Ziyan Liu is a PhD researcher in Textiles at the Royal College of Art, working within the RCA Robotics Laboratory and Creative Intelligence Exchange.
Her research explores how agency emerges through relations between humans and nonhumans in textile practice. Grounded in machine knitting, she combines Research through Design, first-person inquiry and more-than-human and posthuman perspectives to examine how materials and technologies shape making, decision-making and craft knowledge. Her interests span textile practice, human–computer interaction and artificial intelligence.
Through reflection and documentation, she investigates how these relations can inform textile design and broader understandings of human–nonhuman collaboration across diverse design contexts.
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Biography
Ziyan Liu is a textile designer and researcher at the Royal College of Art and a member of the British Art Network. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the School of Design, Jiangnan University, where she received the Outstanding Student Award and the Hong Kong SangMa Scholarship. She subsequently studied for her MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art from 2021 to 2023.
Her practice centres on knitting and material experimentation, exploring connections between textiles, craft and other creative disciplines. She has developed projects combining knitted structures with glass, sound and digital processes, working across physical objects and interactive experiences.
Alongside her creative practice and research, Ziyan has collaborated with textile and yarn companies as an artist, designer and consultant, contributing to knitted artworks, material development and design concepts. Her work has been exhibited in China and Italy and featured in art and design publications. These experiences have shaped her approach to textiles, bringing together material exploration, technical processes and creative collaboration.
Research interests
Her interests include experimental textile design, digital craft, responsive materials and interactive technologies. She is interested in connections between traditional making skills and emerging computational tools, including artificial intelligence and digital fabrication. Her wider interests extend to interdisciplinary creative collaboration, ways of documenting and sharing practical knowledge, and how hands-on material exploration can open up possibilities for design.
Current and recent projects
Challenging Designer Agency: Nonhuman Agency in Contemporary Knitting Practice.