Helen Britton & David Bielander: Confrontations 2012/2

David Bielander, born 1968, was trained as a traditional goldsmith in Basel, Switzerland before he worked for the industrial designer and jewellery maker Georg Spreng in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. He studied for six years at the Academy of Fine arts in Munich with Prof. Otto Künzli, where he became a master student in 1999. He currently lives in Munich where he established his studio together with Helen Britton (Australia) and Yutaka Minegishi (Japan) in 2002. From 2006 til 2010 David Bielander was the artistic assistant of Prof. Daniel Kruger at the Burg Giebichenstein, University of Art and Design Halle, Germany. Since 2011 he is external tutor at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam.

In 2009 David Bielander was awarded the Förderpreis of the city of Munich, and 2010 the renowned international Herbert-Hofmann-Prize.

He is the winner of the Francoise van den Bosch Award 2012.


Helen Britton completed a Master of Fine Arts by research at Curtin University, Western Australia in 1999, which included guest studies at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and San Diego State University in California. In 1999 she returned to Munich to complete a postgraduate study project at the Academy of Fine Arts with Professor Otto Künzli. In 2002 she established her workshop in Munich with David Bielander and Yutaca Minegishi. Her work is held in the National gallery of Australia, in the Pinakothek der Modern, Munich, the Schmuck Museum Pforzheim and in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others. In 2005 Helen was awarded the Herbert Hofmann prize for excellence in contemporary jewellery and in 2006 the state prize of Bavaria for craftsmanship alongside a project grant from the city of Munich.

In 2007 Helen Britton was artist in residence in the city of Erfurt, Germany, and in 2008 was invited into Exempla at the International Craft fair in Munich. In 2009 Helen Britton was asked to make a solo exhibition at the Bavarian Crafts Council to coincide with the International Craft fair in Munich.

In March of 2011 a new catalogue of Helen Britton’s work was launched in Munich by Helen Drutt-English.