Adornment. The shape of wearable art

Artist list

Rosalba Balsamo, Daria Borovkova, Florence Croisier, Marion Delarue, Eleonora Ghilardi, Elie Hirsch, Oki Izumi, Florence Jaquet, Chiara Lucato, Letizia Maggio, Paola Mirai, Nazan Pak, Enrica Prazzoli, Lavinia Rossetti, Federica Sala, Giulia Savino, María Ignacia Walker Guzmán, Caterina Zanca, Clara del Papa

Adornment – Contemporary Jewelry Exhibition represents, within the festival, the section devoted to contemporary jewelry. With the intention of creating an annual event in the Venetian cultural programming, this year’s theme is ‘The shape of wearable art’: a jewel that explores the typical formal boundaries of the body to challenge stereotyped notions and expectations.
The exhibition expands the fluid and wide boundaries of wearable art, seeking the original meaning of the ornament as a symbol of deep identification and belonging to a specific community, from the social to the spiritual level. Especially this year, pieces were selected for their shapes, their design and their clever use of materials, for challenging the conventional space of the body and entering into new and unexpected forms of dialogue, able to unveil new senses and meanings tied to the identity of the individual, as a single human being or as part of a community.
Lucia Massei, Director of the school, says: “the jewel represents the gift par excellence. It is one of the oldest responses to an aesthetic and emotional human impulse; it has a special potentiality of communication, and allows to better define the identity of the wearer within a social context.”

Alchimia presents a selection of works realized by the graduating students of its MFA inJewellery and Body Ornament.

The use of experimental techniques and unusual materials as well as both formal and aesthetic philosophical research, enhance the expressive and communicative potential of these works. From the socio-cultural investigation made by Daria Borovkova to the futuristic vision ofEnrica Prazzoli, jewellery finds new lives and expressions: the research on memory and belonging conduced by Lavinia Rossetti is alternated with the more introspective and psychological approach of Federica Sala. Giulia Savino, in her necklaces, offers a representation of identity linked to the mapping of spaces and psyches, while María Ignacia Walker Guzmán is committed to a mystical and alchemical study of the body.
Generally, the works in the exhibition vary, ranging from delicate and minimal creations to sculptures. With her jewel Florence Croisier draws the body almost as weaving a cloth, proposing a graphic, clean, linear and subtle work thanks to the high quality of the materials she uses; Florence Jaquet with her Literary Jewels and Chiara Lucato in her collection The Storyteller, intervene in shapes to invade the body through stories that are layered in the folds of the paper and in the delicacy of a magic lantern; Elie Hirsch and Ōki Izumi interpret two conceptual opposites of jewellery sculpture, the first tied to a primordial era, warm and archetypal, almost tribal, while the second focuses on the heavenly purity of geometric and light transparency of glass; Eleonora Ghilardi and Letizia Maggio have different and original visions of the ceramic and porcelain jewelry, which is here interpreted in various forms, styles and techniques; Rosalba Balsamo and Paola Mirai work in a futurist and contemporary direction, experimenting with techniques and materials, and giving priority to plastic and aesthetic design.Marion Delarue develops her research straddling Eastern symbolism and introspection, working on the energy of jewelries and treating them as potential amulets; clean lines and attention to geometry characterize the creations of both Nazan Pak and Caterina Zanca, the first attracted to soft, enveloping shapes, the second dedicated to conceptual and minimal compositions that alternate and play with spaces and materials, sulek-burcu-emptiness-2015 and fullness. The goldsmith tradition finds, finally, new expressive potential in the contemporary creations byClara del Papa and Laberintho, whose jewelry echoes styles of past epochs.

About the Event:
Design.Ve is the brainchild of Francesca Giubilei and Luca Berta – independent curators, gallery owners and founders of Veniceartfactory – lives of the contribution of an international scientific committee composed by Joris Montens, Ilaria Ruggiero, Francesca Valente, Nannet van der Kleijn, Micaela Zucconi and benefits from the advice of AtemporaryStudio, to offer an unprecedented look on design.
Design.Ve exists as a diffused festival where installations in the urban texture interact with exhibitions, and where traditional craftsmanship meets modern experimentation. Emerging designers and international design brands will carry out a new city map in Design Walks Through Venice.