First Theoretical Aid

Our First Theoretical Aid will be available in Munich* from 4-8 March!
(Some online slots are available as well)

Do you feel stuck in an artistic crisis and in need of urgent help to get out of it?
Do you need a fresh perspective on your work?
Or would you like to improve or rethink your artist statement?

At our emergency station, we offer one-to-one support, meetings during 30 minutes.
Our experienced “doctors” will be happy to discuss your creative concerns, look at your crisis from a new angle, and suggest possible “treatments.”

RSVP is required.
Please send via email lenakarpilova@gmail.com
- What you’re struggling with (3-5 sentences)
- Which exact help do you want to receive (Help with artistic statement? How to promote your works? Just some general artistic crisis?)
- Link on your works/artistic statement
Apply till 1st March


Within two days, you will receive a response with a proposed date and time slot for the consultation.
We will also ask each participant to bring something small (about the size of a standard ring): a piece of jewelry made by you, or one that belongs to you, or something related to jewelry. Please don’t worry — we will not keep it. You will receive it back, as it is part of our interaction project.

Slots are limited — we will choose 15 patients.
*There are some consultations in Munich, but online as well!

Consultations are provided free of charge, regardless of insurance status.
Remember, dear patient: your slot is reserved for you, and the “doctor” will be waiting for you at the selected time.


Doctors:
Elena Karpilova*
Head of the First Theoretical Aid. Psychotherapist.
Will listen to your concerns, doubts, and professional uncertainties — whether about your career or your artist statement — without judgment and in complete confidence.
*Interdisciplinary educator (theory of architecture and visual arts), curator, writer, founder of the Architectural Thinking School.

Saskia van Es*
Plastic Surgeon: will read and engage with statements by artists who work with ecology as a lens, and will dissect the politics of materials — plastic and otherwise.
*Teaches jewelry history and theory at Sint Lucas Antwerpen and writes about jewelry.

Cécile Maes*
Logistics Doctor: helps build portfolios, offers practical advice, and provides guidance on professionalization for emerging artists.
*Content Editor at Klimt02, Barcelona. With an artistic background and art school education, and through her work with Klimt02, she has insight into how opportunities are structured, as well as how galleries function, including through her experience with Hannah Gallery.

Liesbeth den Besten*
Emergency Physician for all the small injuries encountered along the way to becoming a jewelry artist or designer.
*Writer, art historian, retired teacher.

Anneleen Swillen*
Speculative Surgeon and Practitioner of Entangled Bodies, Relational Technologies, Co-Creative Worlding, Posthuman Phenomena, and Other Emergencies.
Offers consultations and prescriptions from an Apothecary of Symbiotic Futures for all your jewelry-related blood, sweat, tears, and fever dreams.
*Works as a researcher and lecturer at PXL-MAD School of Arts and Hasselt University, where she also coordinates a transversal research line on emerging technologies.

Margaret Munchheimer*
Radical Listener — A Medium for Artistic Crisis.
Is your creative malady deeper than the surface? Is your spirit in need of an energetic injection? Say more.
As an experienced interviewer of artists, I will accompany you toward insight simply by asking the right questions.
Providing online consultations. 
*Editor of Munich Jewellery Week and Obsessed! Papers since 2022; I have reviewed hundreds of open call submissions.