Budapest Jewelry Week
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In September 2022 the Budapest Jewelry Week will be organised for the eighth time. The utmost goal of the event is to familiarise an audience as wide as possible with the genres of contemporary jewelry by creating opportunities for local and foreign artists to present their latest works. The programme follows a biannual thematic structure, and as it has been before in every even-numbered year in this autumn again more than twenty venues will host solo or group shows as well as accompanying events all around Budapest. In addition, an exhibition will also be organised from the artworks submitted for an international artist call. The show revolves around the theme ‘PARADOX’ and the selection has been made by a one-person jury, by the most outstanding and influential figure of contemporary jewelry, the Dutch Gijs Bakker.
Apart from the exhibitions the organisers of BJW aim to motivate the Hungarian and international designers and enable them to form a community via professional reports and themed workshops. The value creating initiatives that are out of ordinary in the Hungarian art scene are attracting more and more interest internationally as well as within Hungary. This year three specials guests have been invited to the event: Gijs Bakker, Charon Kransen és Daniela Malev. Our programme will, therefore, be extended by Charon’s online portfolio review and Daniela’s five-day workshop.
The team of the event organisers, Zsófia Gizella Biró, Fruzsi Fekete, Zsófia Neuzer, Mária Roskó, Nóra Tengely, are looking forward to seeing all jewelry lovers at the events!
Date: 12-18 September, 2022.
Location: Budapest, Hungary
ZSÓFIA GIZELLA BIRÓ
ParaTubes necklace and Tube brooch
Like a child fascinated by colour, I get excited by semi-finished industrial products, the oily smell of steel, copper, aluminium and the beauty of geometry. During the quarantine period, I started making jewellery using waste packaging from cosmetics during my jewellery series Changing, I was curious how they were produce in a factory. The tubes used to make the ParaTubes necklace are recognisable when taken out of their usual place and changed in shape, but when worn as jewellery they evoke new associations. For me, the beauty of jewellery making is that its appearance is astonishing, thought-provoking, questionable, because reality is not always what it seems.
MÁRIA ROSKÓ
Nosce te ipsum – bracelet - patinated copper, hand-graving, 2018
Concrete vs. abstract, supernatural vs. physical, visible vs. invisible, vague vs. frank…
From pre-historic figural representations to present-day digitization, the history of technology encompasses a range of opposing features and trends. The vertiginous changes of technology, however, are connected by the human individual, creator and user of any new technologies. Addressing these problems, the pieces reflect on how to react, as humans, to the constant transformation of the world around us by technology. A possible answer to this question is hidden in the binary message on the pieces.
NÓRA TENGELY
Chains and pearls. How different connotations, how many different messages. The previous layers of meaning are attached to them so strongly that it is hard to ignore them. Still, these two materials are not so far from each other. Both capture the negative notion of captivity, though one reflects it directly, while the other indirectly; one shows the symbol of physical bondage, while the other that of a social one.
The tension within these materials is what triggered the creation of my series. I tend to personify materials as having human qualities, as if they had their own will and power, which they can compete with. The same thinking was behind the creation of my latest object series entitled ‘Strong’, which accommodates many forms of rivalry between the two materials.
FRUZSI FEKETE
Greenery brooch, sterling silver2021
I consider myself an intuitive designer: for me, design always starts with the material. I don't make sketches, I start working with the material right away - I draw inspiration from a direct, tactile contact with the material.
I have worked with many different materials, but beeswax is the one that is closest to my heart. It is also the material I used to create the jewellery for my LEAVES collection, which has been popular for years. The idea was inspired by a repetitive movement: watching my mother make the tiny chips of hand-kneaded dough for Sunday soup. I translated this moment into my own creative language: pinching off a piece of beeswax sheets, I moulded the soft, malleable material between my fingers until finding the final, organic shapes instinctively. Interestingly, most pieces were evocative of some plant detail: flower petals, leaves.
It is from the LEAVES collection that my most recent series, GREENERY, draws inspiration. The plant details from earlier collections are assembled into flower petals and I have confined the floral compositions within shimmering metallic “frames”. Each piece of jewellery is “a meeting place” for the natural and the artificial, for the controlled and the uncontrolled.
GREENERY will be presented for the first time in Strasbourg, reflecting this particular location.
ZSÓFIA NEUZER
“ The frequencies of a touch are meant to illustrate the desire after the act of touching. My previous series was also based on touch: if one of the objects were touched, a black patinated flower opened up, leaving a small piece of itself with every movement. The touch could be driven by love, horror or belief, I recalled the many statues and buildings I used to touch on holidays as a child, because the local languages associated good luck with this gesture. “