Shared Stories Jewellery by Chequita Nahar

Artist list

Chequita Nahar

I came into contact with jewellery when I was a little girl. When I was two months old, my grandfather gave me golden bracelets and earrings. In Suriname, it is important to give your child jewellery between the age of two months and one year. This keeps the child safe. My gifts had garnets to keep me safe. The gold honours the spirits. These pieces were my first encounter with jewellery and its meanings. I always wondered why Suriname women and men wore specific rings or other jewellery. There are rings with a knot called ‘mattenklopper’. They are signs of connection, strength, and friendship. Then there is the ala kondre necklace. It is made from a variety of beads. When I found out about contemporary jewellery, I knew I wanted to explore it and connect it to my stories as a child and to my cultural heritage.
/Chequita Nahar interviewed by Olivia Shih for Art Jewelry Forum

As an artist and teacher, Chequita Nahar acts as a link between different generations. For example, Shared stories combines work by her former teacher Onno Boekhoudt with other artists who have inspired her. The exhibition also displays work by artists on whom she has had an influence. Nahar invited Iriée Zamblé and Wendy Owusu to form part of this exhibition because of the way in which they interpret their backgrounds and culture in their work. Nahar is also curious about stories from and within the CODA collection: why were pieces purchased from some jewellery artists and not others? Where are there omissions in the collection, and where is the collection complete? This exhibition and the artist's selection provide various perspectives on the collection. Finding connections between differences and similarities is at its core.

For this exhibition, I went looking for synonyms from different angles in order to find connections or an interpretation of various themes in my own work, work in the CODA collection and in the work of Iriée Zamblé and Wendy Owusu.
/Chequita Nahar

Born in 1970 in Paramaribo, Chequita Nahar is a jewellery designer, teacher and curator. She is a graduate of the Maastricht Institute of Arts where she has been head of the programme, fine art and design, body, object, and material departments since 2014. After, she did her master's at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Chequita Nahar's work is based on her bi-cultural background and is often a fusion of different cultural influences. She combines Surinamese handicrafts with techniques rooted in contemporary professional practice in her jewellery. Her subjects and themes touch upon Surinamese culture, heritage, rituals, symbolism and visual language, which she connects to her experience of Dutch culture. She incorporates porcelain, cotton, wood and silver into her jewellery, and beads of various shapes and designs also form a regular part of her work. The materials she chooses are of great value and significance. Not for the intrinsic value of their materials but, above all, for their symbolism and the connection that can be made between materials and heritage, tradition, cultures and stories. Without exception, her jewellery reveals the power of jewellery as a means of communication and as a ‘messenger’.
Nahar is an important advocate of diversity and inclusion in fine arts education. She promotes dialogue and discussion as a teacher and the head of the Fine Art and Design programme at the Maastricht Institute of Arts and as an artist and curator. Her work forms part of various museum and private collections, including the CODA collection, and has previously been shown in exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum, Museum Arnhem and the TextielMuseum in Tilburg. In 2022 she was awarded the Françoise van den Bosch Prize.


Opening Reception: Sunday 19 March at 2.30 pm.
If you would like to attend the opening, please register via the pink button at www.coda-apeldoorn.nl/nahar.