Jewellery as Situation: On the Relational Practice of Da Ye Kim. A Critical Review by Klimt02

Existence is co-existence, wrote the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy.

A statement that reminds us that, as human beings, we are never shaped in isolation, but always through our encounters with others and with the environments we inhabit. Our existence is woven through with relationships that shape us just as much as we shape them.

And then there is jewellery. This small wearable object, still too often dismissed as little more than a luxury commodity or a decorative accessory. Yet jewellery has never really existed in isolation. It needs a body to wear it, another to see it, and a context in which it can be understood. By its very nature, it already belongs in the space between people.
It is precisely this space that lies at the heart of Da Ye Kim's work. Rather than representing relationships, her practice makes them its very material.

Jewellery shifts its centre of gravity. It no longer speaks of the individual, but of the conditions that make relationships possible.

Jewellery as a situation, not decoration, writes the artist.

The choice of words is telling. A situation is "a set of circumstances in which one or more people find themselves." It implies a context, a body, a place, a moment in time and, above all, an interaction. A situation can never exist on its own. In Da Ye Kim's practice, jewellery ceases to be a self-contained object and becomes a relational device. It no longer represents a relationship. It produces it, tests it and ultimately makes it tangible.



Da Ye Kim. Brooch: This relationship is ..., 2025. Sterling silver, Glass crystal resin. 3d printed, handcrafted, colouring by airbrush. 4.2 x 15.2 x 5 cm. 



When the Relationship Becomes a Material Condition

This Relationship Is... begins with a simple proposition: giving material form to a relationship through a series of rings that can only be worn together. None of the pieces is truly autonomous because each depends on the other to exist fully. Take one person away, and the object stops doing its job. Interdependence is embedded in the object's structure.

Here, the relationship is far more than a subject. It becomes a material condition. The object is no longer something that two people choose to share. It is an object that requires their cooperation.

In doing so, one of jewellery's fundamental functions is pushed to its limit: extending the individual into the social world and organising our relationship with others. With This Relationship Is..., that premise shifts. Jewellery no longer simply makes a bond visible. It depends upon it.

The real significance of the work, therefore, no longer lies in what happens between the jewellery and its wearer, but in what unfolds between the wearers themselves. Within this in-between, the connection is no longer simply what the jewellery signifies. It becomes the very condition of its existence.

The artist's statement makes it clear that everything begins with a deeply personal relationship before gradually opening onto something universal. The series grows out of the bond she shares with her sister. Here, the sister becomes a figure for all enduring relationships, those that can never be reduced to a single emotion.

Da Ye Kim. Ring: This relationship is ..., 2023. Bronze with 18k gold plating, glass crystal resin. 3d printed, handcrafted, colouring by airbrush. 13.5 x 11.6 x 4.2 cm.
Photo credit: Min-Wook Paeng.

Da Ye Kim. Ring: This relationship is ..., 2025. Sterling silver, glass crystal resin. 3d Printed, handcrafted, colouring by airbrush. 11 x 16 x 6.2 cm.


As the series develops, something begins to shift. Interdependence no longer relies solely on the presence of several bodies. It gradually becomes inscribed within a single one. The other is no longer what makes the jewellery possible. The wearer's body becomes the place where the relationship is made manifest.

The resin structures extrude from the metal settings. They do more than extend the hand. They reach beyond it. Organic, almost tentacular forms spill out of the object, as though something previously invisible had finally taken shape. A force that seems to leave the body in search of contact with something beyond itself.

The pieces no longer require several wearers in order to function. Instead, it is experienced through the physical engagement of a single body. Weight, instability, restricted movement and the constant search for balance become integral to the work.

Da Ye Kim. Ring: This relationship is ..., 2023. Bronze with 18k gold plating, glass crystal resin. 3d Printed, handcrafted, colouring by airbrush. 27 x 13 x 18 cm.
Photo credit: Min-wook Paeng.



Face Face Face: From Relationship to Network

After exploring the link between two people, Da Ye Kim shifts scale once again. Jewellery almost disappears entirely. In its place stand objects that are visually massive, silent and still. Elementary geometric forms that seem to belong less to the language of jewellery than to that of the monolith or sculpture.

From a distance, the forms appear simple, almost minimalist. Nothing suggests what lies beneath their surface. Then the body moves closer. The geometry gradually dissolves, revealing hundreds of faces. Every one derives from the same model, the artist's own face. Yet through repetition, they paradoxically cease to belong to her.


Da Ye Kim. Face Face Face (Box), 2023. Bronze with patina. 30 x 24 x 30 cm, 32kg. 
Photo credit: Zhiwu Zhu and Monica Jiang.


The portrait becomes material.
The face becomes a unit of construction.
The individual becomes structure.


Da Ye Kim. Face Face Face (Box), 2023. Bronze with patina. 30 x 24 x 30 cm, 32kg.


What first appeared to be a compact surface suddenly reveals a multitude. It can never be grasped in a single glance. It asks the viewer to constantly adjust their distance, to move around it, to shift back and forth between detail and whole. Once again, the encounter unfolds as a situation between form and viewer.

This accumulation evokes both mineral formations and the branching networks of mycelium. The organic forms that already ran through the wearable pieces seem here to unfold on another scale, that of the hidden fungal network that connects and nourishes life beneath the surface. The mushroom is only its visible manifestation. What appears before us is merely a fragment of something far larger.

From the interdependent rings of This Relationship Is... to the accumulations of Face Face Face, the focus gradually shifts from the bond between two individuals, to the body, and finally to the collective. Across both series, invisible connections gradually become perceptible.

Face Face Face also recalls the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung's understanding of the self as a constellation rather than a fixed identity. As he wrote: The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Every face touches several others. None remains unchanged. Identity ceases to be a portrait and becomes a network. Rather than dissolving the individual into the collective, the work reminds us that one cannot be conceived without the other.

Rather than creating relationships, Da Ye Kim's practice reveals those that already exist. Whether through jewellery or sculpture, it renders perceptible the often invisible network of relationships that shapes us and within which we exist.

Da Ye Kim. Face Face Face (Diamond), 2023. Bronze with patina. 10 x 20 x 10 cm, 2,1kg. 
Photo credit: Zhiwu Zhu and Monica Jiang.


Face Face Face Installation view at SEAMS, group show at the Season Gallery, London in 2023.



Da Ye Kim​ is a London-based contemporary jewellery and wearable artist. She studied Metal and Textile in Art and Craft at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul before completing an MA in Jewellery and Metal at the Royal College of Art in 2023.
In 2024, she was selected as a finalist for Schmuck and received Silver and Bronze Awards from the Goldsmiths' Craft & Design Council. In 2025, her work was exhibited during London Craft Week and the London Design Festival, as well as in Sleaford, Graz and Limerick.
In 2026, her work was included in Fragility, organised by Alliages during Munich Jewellery Week, before travelling to Cagnes-sur-Mer. The artist also exhibited in Madrid, Ljubljana and Leicester, and will participate in Budapest as part of Inflow in September 2026. 

Website: www.dayekim.uk
Instagram: @_dd___k
Email: daye.kim@network.rca.ac.uk



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