28 February—3 March 2024

(02.03.2024)

· 12 ·

Wearing Space: Body and Site

MJW Social Club

Lost Weekend, Schellingstraße 3, Munich, Germany

Vivi Touloumidi, Sanctionary badge-DIY, 2023. Photo courtesy of the artist

 

Event duration: 02.03.2024, 10:30-12:30

“Wearing Space: Body and Site” is a two-hour open seminar curated by Prof. Yuka Oyama from the HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design at the University of Gothenburg and Prof. Anders Ljungberg from Konstfack CRAFT! The concept revolves around the idea that jewelry occupies a unique position—worn on the body—and therefore, it is deeply embedded in life and matter.

The open seminar will facilitate engaging conversations on how jewellery can be a means of exploring relationships between jewellery, body, and site, fostering a dialogue among these elements. Conversely, it will explore how body as a site, space, and location interacts with jewellery. We draw close attention to jewellery and site-specific political as well as geological history, materials and geography, personal geography, and spaces between jewellery and the human body.

“Wearing Space: Body and Site” will start with brief presentations by moderators Yuka and Anders. Following that, jewellery artists and researchers, Dr. Patricia Domingues and Dr. Vivi Touloumidi will also provide their perspectives on how their artistic practices intersect with the themes of wearing space, body, and site. Afterwards, Vivi, Patricia, and four selected MA students from HDK-Valand and Konstfack, along with the moderators will engage in open conversations, offering insights into the current projects that are undertaken by the students.

Vivi Touloumidi’s (PhD) artistic work is embedded in the intersections of art, cultural activism, and craft disciplines. Her primary focus involves using wearable and portable art to advocate sociopolitical messages, evoke discourse, and place the body within the public sphere. Central to her creative process is the examination of the social importance of body-related objects and their capacity to interact with issues of the current times. She has written articles on related subjects for FORUM+, Art Jewelry Forum and The Vessel magazine of Norwegian Crafts.Vivi was born and studied in Athens, Greece and holds an MFA in the Crafts from Konstfack University in Stockholm. She has participated in international exhibitions since 2010. Most recently her solo exhibition was held at MHKA Museum. Since 2018, she has been leading artistic research at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Vivi obtained her PhD in the Arts in collaboration with the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA) in Belgium in 2022.
@vivitouloumidi
vivitouloumidi.com

 

Patricia Domingues (PhD) research takes landscape as a strong spatial connection with humans and the vivid perception of it. Her focus is on representations and perceptions of landscapes, viewing them as self-reconstructed images and a means to convey immensity.
Patricia Domingues (lives in Germany, born in Lisbon) is a Portuguese jewellery artist and researcher. She has studied at Massana School (BA) and Master of Arts at Gemstone and Jewellery Design, University of Trier, Idar-Oberstein. Patricia has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally since 2009. Her work has been awarded by New Traditional Jewellery in Amsterdam, Talente 2014 in Munich, Mari Funaki Award for emerging artist in Australia and the Young Talent Prize of the European World Crafts Council in Belgium. Patricia obtained her PhD from University of Hasselt & PXL-MAD School of Arts in 2022.
patriciadomingues.pt

 

Anders Ljungberg has exhibited, lectured and been a guest teacher around the world, while being based in Gustavsberg, where he both lives and has his studio. One of his main topics is the relationship between human, object and space in which he examines emotional, metaphorical and poetic understandings of everyday use. He is represented by Galerie Marzee in The Netherlands, Galerie Rosemarie Jäger in Germany, Ornamentum gallery in Hudson, New York and exhibits frequently in other contexts worldwide. Anders Ljungberg is represented at Marzee collection in Nijmegen, National museum in Stockholm, Röhsska in Gothenburg, National museum in Oslo, Nordiska in Stockholm and the Royal collection in Stockholm. At Konstfack, he was first a student between 1989 and 1994, returning as a Senior Lecturer between 2000 and 2010. From 2016 he is Professor at the Jewellery and Corpus CRAFT! Programme at Konstfack. He also worked as professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Metal and Jewellery Art, between 2014-2016.
konstfack.se

 

Yuka Oyama is a visual artist, who employs life-sized wearable sculptures, performance, and jewellery to explore roles of jewellery and small personal belongings to create a sense of constancy in transient living situations. The artist’s original training as a jeweller transpires in her fascination for things that are deemed special enough to be carried on the body, as well as thing-person relationship between adorned objects, their wearers, and the persons’ subjectivities. Yuka’s sculptures are often worn in public theatrical settings. They encourage participants to feel more imaginative, experience moments of connection to human and non-human actors, and act beyond set conventions. Yuka Oyama studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA (BFA in Jewelry and Light Metals); the Munich Art Academy, Germany (Prof. Otto Künzli, Prof. Asta Gröting); Oslo National Academy of Arts, Norway (PhD in Artistic Research). In her current role as Professor of Jewellery Art at HDK-Valand, she leads the MA in Jewellery Art.

Yuk has been participating in international exhibitioins since 2003: MARTa Herford Museum, Herford (2023); The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington (2018); Akademirommet, Oslo (2016); Receptions Gallery, Oslo (2016); Oslo Kustforenning, Oslo (2015); Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (2015); the SPACES Gallery, Cleveland (2013); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Zentrum für Medien und Technologie, Karlsruhe; Pinakothek der Moderne, München; Echigo-Tsumari Art Biennial, Japan.
@studioyukaoyama
yukaoyama.com

 

 

Jodie De Verney – Student of CRAFT! Jewellery and Corpus, Konstfack
Jodie De Verney’s work searches for traces of buried or abandoned sites. She visits flea markets as a resourceful investigative space where the past is left behind, and the relationship between memory and history comes together. Jodie deconstructs and deforms secondhand artifacts to deviate from their original forms and purposes. Through reusing and recontextualizing the materials to enhance their wearability, the artist seeks to restore a sense of belonging. Jewellery is employed as a method of inquiries to identify how fragmented objects are reintegrated into our societal structure.

 

Shiyao Sun – Student of HDK-Valand, GothenburghShiyao
Sun’s artistic practice is driven by investigating the physical relationship between jewellery and the wearer’s body, which is tightly related to the space around the body. Through employing social research, such as qualitative interviews and test samples, she aims to study which body part is the most chosen site to wear jewellery, why these sites are selected, and what the wearer’s authentic, physical, and sensory feelings are toward wearing it. Shiyao Sun seeks to guide viewers to experience sensations of physically wearing jewellery pieces, the space between the body and jewellery, and the intimate dialogue that arises through visions.

 

Lovisa Hed – Student of CRAFT! Jewellery and Corpus, Konstfack
For Lovisa Hed, jewellery is a way of communication between human bodies. Questions about what jewellery is and can be lead her work to investigate the internal and external spaces around and within the body, which she connects together using a chain. Lovisa’s work delves into defining the in-between space around jewellery. For example, there is the surface of jewellery that is shown to others and the interior, where personal meanings are kept within the wearer’s subjective realm. For Lovisa, the act of making jewellery is a means of documenting various aspects of sadness and understanding how to deal with it in an everyday setting.

 

Elena Aldrighetti – Sudent of HDK-Valand, Gothenburh
Elena Aldrighetti’s practice revolves around investigating a space in relation to individuals’ memories, sensations, place and special ties to people. She critically reflects on the description of the space that is intertwined with the idealization of a memory. As Elena describes it, “Every time we recall a memory, we briefly relive a space that no longer exists.” In her project, Elena Aldrighetti aims to highlight the nuances of olfactory memory, using soap as her central material. Soap becomes not only an element for cleaning the skin but also a means to alter the natural scent of our bodies.