KORU 3 Workshops

During the opening week of the Koru 3 International Jewellery Event 2009 there will be 3 workshops leaded by:

Iris Eichenberg, Granbrook Academy of Arts, USA,
Ute Eitzenhöfer, Fachochschule Trier, Idar-Oberstein, Germany
Terhi Tolvanen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 



Eija Mustonen
mobile +358 40 763 3690
eija.mustonen@saimia.fi

For enquiries you can also contact the coordinator of the Arts Council of Southeast Finland
Antonio Altarriba
Arts Council of Southeast Finland
International + 358 40 5951680
antonio.altarriba@minedu.fi
www.hanatkaakkoon.net 

Dates and price

Workshop by Iris Eichenberg
2.-5.11.2009, four days
Price: 100 euros

A friend and colleague of mine once described a piece of work as “beautifully bare.” That, she said, was the highest praise she could and would offer. Although I sensed what she meant at the time, it took me years to fully understand and embrace the concept of “beautifully bare” in relation to art. It signifies, as I see it, the impossibility of making something as good, or even nearly as good as a piece we find found at the curb—which has always been one of my greatest frustrations.

What is the quality of apparent nothingness? Unpretentious modest beauty, no more and no less. One knows it when one finds oneself speechless, silent, in the encounter with a certain type of work, in the absence of spectacular sensation, in the absence of eye-shattering colors, accumulated materials, and/or impressive techniques. What is this bare beauty, if there is such a thing, and would there ever be two people agreeing on and recognizing it?

To un-evoke sensation with an object, in a form that barely exists—even though you cannot put your finger on its beauty, you keep on wondering why, being so contracted and introverted, it is yet so beautiful.

John Cage:
"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it"

The workshop’s aim is to make us wonder about apparent nothingness, to force us to kill our darlings, to take away and dismantle the pieces we have so elaborately constructed. To trace, through the material collage, the layers and repetitions, the hidden, barely beautiful, perfect piece. To trace means to move backwards through the processes and methods we have developed to find the place and moment when the work was finished. We will have to limit our vocabulary and search for the momentary essence, balancing form in relation to material and vice versa. Our goal will be to make the most silent body of work by getting rid of the unnecessary.


Workshop by Ute Eitzenhöfer
Worthwhile
2.-5.11.2009, four days
Price: 100 euros
Workshop assistant Tarja Tuupanen

Worthwhile — "Worth for a while" or "Worth the while"?
It is worthwhile looking up definitions of "worth" and "value" and bumping into "worthwhile". For both, "worth" and "while" there are synonyms in today's language whilst "worth" stands for "value" and "while" for "time".

"Worth" may be defined as an intrinsically being quality, whereas "value" may be understood as an extrinsic, estimated, transitory or temporary given quality.

The workshop focusses on the following questions:
How or in how far can we recognize how much time it took to realize an object? In which way is an object influenced by and through time-consuming techniques? How is the material used interrelated with time? Is an accidental result worthless or of no value or is it even of higher worth and value instead? How does coincidence or chance contribute to or influence the working process?

The basic material used in this workshop is stone (not necessarily some precious stone) to find out whether the material limits the creative process for working with stone as a material requires intensive and often time-consuming efforts. Thus one objective is to find out which are the impacts on working with stone and how our perception of time is influenced by this process. Other objectives are to find out and show the interdependence of "stone" and "time" and the ways in which the different influences affect or effect the realization of the object and to recognize and manifest in how far stone as a material has influenced one's own work.


Workshop by Constanze Schreiber
Reading jewellery
2.-5.11.2009, four days
Price: 100 euros