Daniella Saraya (Israel)
DANIELLA SARAYA
Biography:
Daniella Saraya was born in Tel Aviv, Israel (1988). She is an artist and a curator, completed her bachelor’s degree in jewelry design (2013) and her master’s degree in multidisciplinary design (2017) from Shenkar College (Israel). In 2019 she started studying in the class of prof. Karen Pontoppidan at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Over the past decade she creates jewelry and participating in exhibitions both in Israel and around the world. Her works question the Boundaries of the jewelry, focusing on its performative side and its connection to the body.
Take the heart as an example
2021
Daniella Saraya
One of the most interesting questions that arise when we think about jewelry is the question of the value of the material (and the cost). Throughout history it has been customary to make jewelry from materials which were considered precious and expensive, mostly metals and stones. In our work today we have an opportunity to question it through jewelry, challenge and ask about the reasons why we consider a particular material as expensive or valuable. What are the things we choose to sanctify, to empower, what makes us consider something specific as precious?
Over the years, the thought about jewelry in relation to these questions is undergoing significant change, coming from a critical thinking about the source of the material we use and how it was created. more than that, to whom this material belonged before, and what was sacrificed for it to reach us. Making jewelry today is an opportunity to offer new ways of defining material as valuable, by a deeper understanding of the ideas and meaning that the material represents.
For me the most valuable thing about jewelry are the people wearing them, the body that gives them life, turns them from objects into actions.
When I say the word body, I mean everything we are, our thoughts, feelings, and experiences - our identity. and sometimes also things we are not, Things we could have been, or things that are reflected through us. The body is full of ideas, related to history, politics and culture, ideas that resonate when working on it and can be used to tell our story. Our organs and their actions Became a central part of our language and are often used as a metaphor to describe emotions and situations that are not physical.
The connection between the physical and emotional meanings of the body is well expressed when one thinks of the heart. An organ responsible for the internal movement of the body, that activates us and allows us to be alive, but also became a symbol, as the organ carrying within it our emotions. In this series I want to suggest the use of jewelry as tools to express our feelings, and to suggest our feelings as the precious materiel, valued higher than any other material in the world.
