MASKING & Precious personhood - 2023

Jewellery collection for O-jewel Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

AuraStrata,

Layers of the mediated Real

At the invitation of Art Director and gallery owner Chitose Ochi, i made a collection of jewelry pieces around the notion of the ‘real’ and the aura of nature and culture. The plastic beads used were sourced from an indigenous community in Thailand that have always used beads in their clothing and had somewhat recently altered their craft to include plastic beads. Most indigenous ‘traditional’ crafts are assumed to be most (or even only) valuable when they are static, or frozen in time. The word traditional itself is problematic in relation to these kinds of practices because it assumes practices never have and never will change. This stems from colonial ideas that non-European cultures were pre-modern and un(der)developed, establishing a hierarchy in relation to Western ‘developed’ cultures. On the other hand, in the jewelry world, more ‘modern’ materials are often un(der)valued and materials and techniques associated with time consuming production (i.e. pearls, diamonds, goldsmithing) are considered more precious. When juxtaposed and incorporated in one work, is a pearl still more precious than a plastic bead, is a pressed flower more real than an artificial flower? What happens to the aura of a material when it is layered?

We see our crammed agenda’s. We see there is no time for boredom and enjoying the little things. Everything is grand, large and vehement.

We feel stress and paralysis.

We appreciate suprises. Let nothing be predictable and use the unexpected.

We wish for protest. Protest by standing still and enjoying.

Ontwerpers // Designers:

Julia Leitmeyer

Lieke Brekelmans

Juliette Huygen

TACTILE OBSESSIONS - 2011

Je me te souviens is a mourning jewel, based on 19th century hair jewellery. In earlier centuries it was very common to carry a lock of hair of a loved one with you. Nowadays this is barely imaginable. Dead hair seems to have become a taboo in the same way that death itself has become a taboo. However the idea and symbolism behind carrying a lock of hair with you, really appealed to me. Therefore, in this project i looked for a way to maintain this ritual, without forcing the outside world to be confronted with it. In the end i made a locket of porcelain inspired by abstracting shadows, hair, braids and coffins, without it being over obvious.