Linda Molenaar was invited to the Jewellery – Linking Bodies Department for a workshop on hair. The workshop aimed at learning about the possibilities to use (horse) hair, how to use techniques as well as thinking about the context of hair which is actually a waste product of violin production. Old fashioned tools were made and used to create weaves, after which the students were free to make their own creation.
Every semester we explore a topic that touches a core aspect of jewellery. Before we have dealt with Camouflage and Plastic Surgery, this semester we deal with Geo-diversity.
As part of this semester’s program we have invited Patricia Domingues for a two day workshop based on techniques and methods she developed in and during her practice.
We started off with large scale plaster block cutting and breaking and we slowly moved towards a more refined, controlled and detailed cutting, cracking, filing shaping and joining. The next day a first encounter with harder stones. There was energy and material for a three day workshop! Thank you Patricia!!!
To be continued…
Matters of Movement – Oct 28,29,30 – 2015
workshop Lotte van Gelder
for students Jewelry Dept GRA – Year 1&2
Locations: Dokhuis Gallery theatre, the several layers of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
In Matters of Movement students are invited into a creative process that departs from bodywork and connects specifically to their craft.
The first part of each day is dedicated to developing physical awareness through practicing together, then personal assignments are set up for each student to pursue a creative project.
For the October session with the jewelry students accent was placed on alternate ways of reading, sensing and charting the body. For the jewelry artist the body generally is the canvas for which objects are created. For an artist in general the body is the first instrument available to work from. One of the main tasks of this workshop is to deepen awareness of this tool.
Over the course of three days, at the theatre studio of the Amsterdam Dokhuis Gallery (many thanks for hosting us!), students were introduced to exercises on observation versus sensing, moving solo or in group and created movement patterns from structured improvisations. The second half of each day was dedicated to developing a personal way of reading the body of the self or the other and materializing from there.
Together we made a small trip to the Stedelijk Museum, where Mariana Lanari shared her Moving Thinking project with us and gave an exercise that allowed to experience the different layers of movement of the museum building.
During the Matters of Movement sessions several questions came up about the relationship between body and object, and in what way for a jewelry piece these elements have to always connect: how to make pieces about the body? what is the relation to outside and inside? does jewelry always connect to the body? where is the border between jewelry and clothes? The discoveries made by the students developed into personal notation systems, ad-hoc compositions and concrete pieces deriving from minimal material means. A booklet to reflect the process is in the making.
Photos courtesy of Kateryna Snizhko
