CHALLENGING JEWELLERY
CHALLENGING JEWELLERY: Joanne Vosloo, Marilyn Volkman, Stephanie Schuitemaker, Margaret Munchheimer, Marek Mrowinksi, Laila El Mehelmy, Morgane de Klerk, Eva van Kempen, Ting Gong, Gabriella Goldsmith, Silvia Faggiani, Veronika Fabian, Seline Durrer
DIRECTORS: BLESS (Ines Kaag & Desiree Heiss) / COORDINATOR: Sarah Mestritz / INTERIM COORDINATOR: Marilyn Volkman
BOARD: Gijs Bakker, Ted Noten, Ruudt Peters, Liesbeth den Besten
The Sandberg Instituut temporary programme, Challenging Jewellery, focuses on building a persuasive collective. One that could be defined as both a corporate association and a movement, driven by a common interest in ‘team spirit’ and the relevance of the silent side of the beauty. The initiative is driven and operated by way of a fully-functioning company structure.
This process facilitates the study of current notions of human need focused on objects. Further investigation will also take place in fields that need aesthetic support in order to allow ‘healing’; which for example include employing aspects of jewellery in medical and political areas.
Individual research and practices continuously interact with the administrative, productive and communicative tasks that everyone in the team agrees to perform. Ideally the collective that formed over the course of the programme will naturally extend into a continued existence and significance beyond its set timeframe of two years.
Tutors, guests and participants form a mix that is characterised by its potential to explore while paying attention to the small, silent and private, the human handling, and the careful treatment of material thoughts, values and behaviours.
The Temporary Programme challenges the subject of jewellery on a fundamental level – how it relates to our present time. The approach represents an attempt to think big on a small scale, and presumes an ability to understand ‘micro-working’. The input for Challenging Jewellery is based on intergenerational dialogue. An advisory board, comprising four key figures in the realm of jewellery and design, ensures this will be done in a solid cooperation with the relevant fields. The visiting tutors and guests – varying from theoreticians and curators to contemporary architects, designers and artists – guarantee a continuous renewal of viewpoints on and insights into a discipline manifest in traditions, historical design and theoretical connotations.