The jewelry department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam invited Susan Pietzsch / Schmuck2 for a workshop project. Schmuck2 focuses on unusual, diverse takes on the themes of “jewelry”, shaping a multi-faced image for contemporary styles of jewelry by using unconventional concepts that move between fine and applied arts. First and second year students of the jewelry department developed work with the focus on investigating the connection between cars, jewelry and the human nature. The outcome serve a wide range of objects possibilities, including an significant collection of wearable jewelry pieces.
The history of the automobile is accompanied by diverse feelings that are not necessarily guided by rationality and pragmatism, but by human identification with the machine. Mobility, freedom, style, and luxury are among the parameters as well as power, strength, and the erotic. The car is not only a means of getting around, but also a reflection of wishes, dreams, and ideas. Car advertisements talk only peripherally about locomotion as an argument for buying a car. First of all, they talk about fun, aesthetic pleasure, generating awareness and a flexible lifestyle. Very similar specifications can be used for jewelry. One could argue that a car encourages similar aspects of individual expression as a piece of jewelry does.
