I think a New Future Has Come for Jewellery. Interview with Joana de Sousa Henriques by Klimt02

Tell us about your background. What were your first influences to be creative and become an artist and what has drawn you to contemporary jewellery?
Jewellery and fashion have always fascinated me since I was little. Foreign fashion magazines were customary at home. I invented accessories for dolls with garbage, seeds, bread crumbs. I molded the bread crumb as if it were plasticine and made accessories for them and rings and bracelets for me. I also liked to watch the fire. Matches, for example, were fascinated to me as a girl. None was the same after-burn. With magnifying glasses and sun, I used to experiment on small pieces of wood. I think it was here that my taste for creating and experimenting was born. I trained in Industrial Design but jewellery was always present and finally, I graduated in High Jewellery. I don't consider myself an artist. I think I still have a lot to get there and be considered as such. I really like contemporary jewellery. I see it more as experimental jewellery, in the point of view that artists are in constant search of new processes, new techniques, new materials. Innovation, I analyze contemporary jewellery more in this sense.

 
How important is networking for you in your professional practice and what are your preferred tools for this?
On Instagram, Facebook, or website, I believe nowadays the internet is essential for this dissemination. Networking is very important to publicize our work and express ourselves. We meet new artists from around the world much more easily.


What are your general thoughts on the contemporary jewellery world, (education, market, development...), where do you see chances, and where are dead ends?
I don't have a fully formed idea about this. I’m still growing and I have a lot to learn in contemporary jewellery and life. But, one thing I know: education and training are essential and must be continuous, until you die. The rest I think comes as a consequence. There is a lot of competition, but that also applies to everything else in life. It is social and values issues and not of contemporary jewellery.


Thinking about your career, what role do technology and the digital play in your artistic development & communication?
I think technology is essential. It is no longer possible to want to communicate our work without also being in the digital world. New digital platforms will continue to be born and now with the pandemic, we have seen how easy it is to make digital grow very fast. It is the future of new jewellery.


How has your work changed over the past few years and what are you excited about these days?
With the life change that we all had to deal with because of covid-19, I think a new future has come for digital jewellery. In physical jewellery it is the use and invention of techniques to recycle materials. We have to save the planet. I see covid-19 as a nature revolt against human beings. We have to hear that. Recycle and use digital. Mass production is not part of our future healthy planet.