New Traditional Jewellery Winners 2008

THEME: Intimacy

The third edition of New Traditional Jewellery, which this year has ‘Intimacy’’ as its theme, has yielded more than 140 entries, from all parts of the world. Half of the entries was submitted by students, slightly more than last year.

The theme ‘Intimacy’ has proved to be a hit, for not only did we receive a large number of entries, but the work submitted was often unusual and of high quality. The theme ‘Intimacy’ has been developed in many different ways. The various cultures from which the entries originated, have certainly contributed to this large variety.

Apart from 5 prize winners, the jury also selected around fifty pieces of jewellery which will be on show in the exhibition of NTJ Intimiteit. This exhibition will be opened during the SIERAAD, Jewellery Art Fair in the Westergasfabriek, from 6 through 9 November, and will afterwards be on show in a number of other locations during 2009.

According to the jury, the exhibition shows an interesting sampling of the richness which the theme ‘Intimacy’ has yielded. The diversity is enormous, not only in technique and choice of material, but also in approach and experiences. Moreover, this diversity is layered. “You find intimacy in the references to all senses - smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing. But also in the places where a piece of jewellery is worn, invisible in a décolletage or very conspicuously with a secret message on the back, against the skin”, says the jury. “Jewellery with an oblique reference to eroticism and sexuality, jewellery exuding a perfume, like the antique pomanders, jewellery with contents that are kept secret even from us”.

Apart from the increase in the number of participating students, the quality of their work is also remarkably high this year, considering the subject. Therefore the jury decided to nominate not 1, but 2 students as prize winners.

The selection the jury made for the exhibition of NTJ 2008 Intimacy is based on a number of criteria. It goes without saying that on the one hand artistic ability and power of expression and concept are among the most important; on the other hand aspects such as innovation, use of material and technical execution also form part of the jury’s deliberations The jury has been emphatically open-minded towards ideas from other cultures which we, in the West, may at times find difficult to fathom.

In view of the nature and quantity of the entries, combined with the jury’s aim to give an as broad and interesting as possible picture of ‘Intimacy’ in this batch of jewellery, one criterion has been added: the measure in which a piece of jewellery entices you to come nearer and have a closer look. The viewer takes a liking to that object, it gets under his/her skin. This connection may in itself be intimate. Such an experience is not necessarily physical – it stimulates your brain. Obviously this is to a large extent the case in many of the works of the prize winners.