游

Work

游頌恩

Joanne Yau Studio

Approach

Joanne Yau approaches design as a vessel for everyday rituals — a framework for presence, movement, and being. She is attuned to how we inhabit space, how objects live with us, and how stillness can hold meaning. Her work seeks that numinous threshold between the material and the ineffable — where form meets feeling, and presence meets place.

Land

Joanne’s process begins with the ground beneath us. She traces land, material, and memory — listening to the histories carried in stone and soil. She is guided by the slow, shaping forces of metamorphosis: glacial movement, erosion, weathering, and growth. Each piece is an echo of these deep rhythms — a moment in a long unfolding.

Her studio is currently based between Brooklyn, New York in Lenapehoking, and Tkaranto/Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples.

Materials

Joanne works in conversation with materials — listening closely and making mindfully. She uses ash, stone slurry, foraged clay, used coffee grinds, and sawdust — reclaimed materials that bear stories of time and transformation. Her work gestures toward the larger ecologies we are part of, and the responsibilities we hold. She seeks to design with care for the planet we share — guided by sustainable practices, healthy materials, and circular systems.

Craft

Joanne’s design process is inseparable from making. Her work uses the quiet language of joinery, detail, and form. These internal tectonics may not always be seen, but they are always felt — like a heartbeat beneath the surface. When she is not prototyping pieces herself, she works hand-in-hand with skilled fabricators and craftspeople — collaborators who carry deep knowledge.

Research

Joanne’s research process gives space to pause, notice, and learn. These inquiries let her consider our place in a vast, shifting world, and inform a practice rooted in empathy and attention. Through them, she aims to deepen her understanding of land, material, and making.

Past research topics include dining rituals, Chinese ceramic traditions, life-cycle and carbon analysis, and the expressive potential of reclaimed matter.

People

Joanne Yau is a ceramic artist, woodworker and registered architect in New York State. Her past work experiences span from Toronto to Helsinki, Nagoya to New York, and includes architectural design, historic reconstruction, millwork fabrication, sustainable strategies, and construction management. This breadth allows her to move fluidly between various scales and scope — from the delicacy of a hand-turned bowl to the complexity of a historic renovation.

curriculum vitae available upon request