The Last Piece of Chicken on the Table by Jing Yang

Artist list

Jing Yang

While studying abroad, I noticed something that has stayed with me ever since.
At KFC or McDonald's, when only one piece of chicken was left on the tray, many students from Asian cultural backgrounds would hesitate, often waiting for someone else to take it first. Others would simply reach for it without thinking twice.
It was never really about hunger. It was about different ideas of politeness, sharing, and the invisible social codes that shape how we act in public spaces.
That small moment became a way for me to think about objects and their value, not as fixed material things, but as something constantly shaped by social meaning and cultural behaviour.
Contemporary jewellery often occupies a similar position: somewhere between fashion and sculpture, between everyday life and the museum.
Perhaps it is the last piece of chicken on the table.
Or perhaps it isn't.
Who decides what belongs at the table?


Jing Yang (b. 1987, China) graduated from Xiamen University before pursuing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where she worked first under Prof. Otto Künzli and later with Prof. Karen Pontoppidan. She received the title of Meisterschülerin from Pontoppidan in 2017 and has since been living and working as a freelance artist in Munich. Working primarily through jewellery, her practice explores the intersections of body, identity, and value, questioning how the body is perceived and categorised, how identity is negotiated through acts of wearing and display, and what underpins the value we assign to objects.