Interview with Christina Karababa around the exhibition Interstitial Space during the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER

What opportunities and limitations do you see in digital technologies in the world of jewellery and for its future? This field of art, as well as the tradition of craftsmanship, has much to gain from technological advancement, but, as is often the case in the logic of progress, it must also lose something. How do you see it?
Digital technologies offer powerful tools that expand the creative and technical possibilities of contemporary jewellery, thereby enriching its design language in unprecedented ways. Digital tools such as CAD, scanning, and simulation lower the barrier to entry for emerging designers and students. Ideas can be tested, iterated, and realised faster and more affordably.

Rather than viewing digital and traditional methods as opposites, I advocate for a complementary dialogical approach. There is a risk that centuries-old techniques, passed down through generations, will be marginalised. Digital technologies should be seen as additions to the maker’s toolkit, not as replacements.


At your solo exhibition in Legnica, which is part of the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER, you’re presenting several different series. I’d like to ask about your most recent works – Marble Rings and Speculative Spaces from 2025, as they make up the largest part of the show – but also about some of the earlier pieces, such as brooches Mnemo from 2019 and pendant In Case from 2011.
Jewellery is my medium of expression – an ever-evolving language through which I respond to different moments, questions, and inner states. At times, it becomes a political statement, as seen in works like Mnemo and In Case, where form and content engage with themes of memory and vulnerability. At other times, I draw inspiration from my immediate surroundings – translating textures, materials, and atmospheres into pieces like the Marble Rings, where the exploration of material properties and surface qualities takes centre stage. And then there are phases of pure curiosity, as seen in Speculative Spaces, when I become fascinated by the technical possibilities of additive fabrication, pushing the boundaries of what is structurally and aesthetically wearable. My practice is shaped by what resonates within me and the kinds of questions I pose – whether conceptual, formal, or material.
Mnemo brooch, 3D-printed ceramic, 10 x 5 x 2 cm, 2014; Terracotta Soldier 3D-captured in X´ian, Shaanxi province, China;Photo: The Gallery of Art in Legnica


One of the intriguing projects we can see in Legnica is Habitat Capsules, in which you draw inspiration from the adaptive techniques of the hermit crab. You’re interested in the moment where the creature marks the intersection between nature, technology, and social interaction, and you try to replicate this evolutionary mechanism of adaptive instinct in the context of architecture or habitation.
I see the hermit crab as an interface between the body and the world, the organic and the constructed, the individual need and the social space. In this way, the hermit crab reflects the human condition, especially in times of ecological and societal flux. We, too, are constantly negotiating our habitats, shaping them through tools, technology, and collective memory.

With the Capsules, I sought to materialize this logic – adapting modular forms that challenge conventional ideas of home, mobility, and body-architecture. The pieces are worn on the body, yet they think beyond it. They evoke both shelter and exposure, protection and transformation, ultimately becoming a theoretical construction of what it means to inhabit space in a fluid, adaptive way.
Habitat Capsules brooches, PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol), steel, 2025
Photos: The Gallery of Art in Legnica, Artist’s archive


By transcending technological boundaries and using digital tools, you expand and redefine both the concept of jewellery as a medium and the role of the artist. My question is: how do you want to change the viewer? What do you want to teach us through your experiments?
My aim is to invite the viewer into a space of reflection, where jewellery is a medium that provokes questions about the body, identity, technology, memory, and the fragility of our environments. I hope to shift perception: to make the viewer aware of the intimate yet complex relationship we have with wearable objects. I want to disturb expectations about what jewellery is, where it belongs, and how it communicates.

In some works, I challenge the idea of permanence through modular or ephemeral forms; in others, I explore how data, political narratives, or social rituals can be embedded into materials and shapes. These are experiments, yes – but experiments that carry emotional, cultural, and philosophical weight.

If there is something I hope to give the viewer, it is a sense of expanded awareness: that jewellery can be a speculative medium – a small, intimate scale on which larger questions of adaptation, transformation, and connection are played out.


The exhibition Interstitial Spaces is a result of the prize awarded by the Gallery of Art in Legnica (Poland) during the 31st International Jewellery Competition QUALITY. The awarded piece, 7 Jewellery Quotes, which brought you the victory, also employed AI as a tool. Could you tell us more about that?
This research project explores how linguistic structures can be translated into abstract, 3D-printable jewellery forms using predefined parameters derived from a basic geometric shape – the cylinder. By materializing textual descriptions and analyses as tangible objects, it introduces a new mode of textual engagement in which haptic perception deepens understanding.

Quotations are used to evoke intertextual relationships, functioning metatextually through forms that parody, critique, or respond to one another. A generative computational tool was developed to analyse these quotations and transform them into three-dimensional artefacts based on responses to the question, What does jewellery mean to you?& The resulting objects serve as diagrammatic expressions of textual cohesion, revealing patterns and relationships through form.

Unlike conventional diagrams, these pieces attain physical presence as wearable objects, challenging boundaries between text, materiality, and spatial representation. This approach offers a novel perspective at the intersection of literary theory, generative design, and contemporary jewellery.



7 Jewellery Quotes necklaces, ABS-plastic, acrylic paint, steel line, 2022
Award of the Gallery of Art in Legnica: 31st International Jewellery Competition QUALITY (2023)
Photo: The Gallery of Art in Legnica
(1) Karin Roy Anderson; (2) Bernhard Schobinger; (3) Peter Weibel; (4) Ramon Puig Cuyàs; (5) Ruudt Peters; (6) Karl Fritsch; (7) Lisa Walker


What do you think of the International Jewellery Competition, and what are your impressions of the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER?
The International Jewellery Competition and the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER stand out as truly exceptional platforms in the contemporary jewellery landscape. What makes them so remarkable is not only their long-standing commitment to showcasing cutting-edge work but also their dedication to fostering critical discourse and experimentation within the field.

The Competition offers an invaluable opportunity for artists from diverse backgrounds to engage with thought-provoking themes and present their work on an international stage. It encourages risk-taking and conceptual depth, pushing the boundaries of what jewellery can be both as an object and as a form of cultural expression.

The Festival itself is a rare and inspiring gathering point for artists, curators, theorists, and audiences. It creates a unique atmosphere where meaningful exchange happens between disciplines, generations, and perspectives. The curatorial quality, the diversity of exhibitions, and the openness to both traditional craftsmanship and radical innovation make Legnica a vibrant hub for contemporary jewellery.

For me personally, participating in the Festival was both an honour and an enriching experience. It reaffirmed the value of jewellery as a medium capable of engaging with urgent social, political, and aesthetic questions. Legnica doesn’t just celebrate jewellery, it challenges and elevates it. I really love it!



The exhibition is part of the BWA Europe Festival, organized by the National Cultural Center and the University of the National Education Commission in Kraków as part of the celebration of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2025.
 

About the Interviewee

Christina Karababa, Born in Athens (Greece), currently lives in Düsseldorf (Germany). She is a designer and an interdisciplinary researcher whose work focuses on the interplay between design, art, jewellery, science and technology.
The artist graduated in Design from the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf (Germany). In 2019, she completed her PhD studies at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, specialising in art and design within the context of artistic design strategies, methods, and the potential applications of 3D technologies.
She is the recipient of the Award of the Gallery of Art in Legnica at the 31st International Jewellery Competition QUALITY (2023), First Prize at the International Competition New Traditional Jewellery in Amsterdam (2006), the DAAD Award at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf (2006), as well as a design scholarship and the Art, Science, Economy scholarship from the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Art Foundation (2009). In 2019, she participated in an artist residency during the 25th International Jewellery Symposium in Kremnica (Slovakia).
She has given guest lectures at the institutions including: Berlin University of the Arts (2023), the International Conference Electronic Visualisation and the Arts in London (2020), Xijing University, Hubei University of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic (2012), and Yuxi University in China (2014).

 

About the author

Justyna Teodorczyk - PhD, culture researcher, art curator, mentor, educator, director of the Gallery of Art in Legnica (Poland), organiser and the main curator of the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER (Legnica, Poland). Curator of many jewellery exhibitions organised in the frame of the Festival (2006-2015, 2019-2025). She initiated a project that resulted in the creation of the website Biżuteria Artystyczna w Polsce (Artistic Jewellery in Poland), which gathers Polish Jewellery artists. Apart from goldsmithing, she is involved in contemporary art exhibitions by Polish artists and educational projects. Juror of the jewellery contests, cooperate with e.g. Romanian Jewellery Week, Israel Biennale, Arts Thread. Global Creative Graduate Showcase, Milano Jewelry Week, Cluster London Contemporary Jewellery Fair.