Karin van Paassen
Jeweller
Published: 04.06.2025
upcmail.nlBio
I am a driven individual who organized dozens of cultural projects as a curator. I have a broad interest in art, design, fashion and of course people behind their works. I like complicated challenges. I love to design and make jewellery and body-related objects, always made of black porcelain. I often combine porcelain with horsehair. I am always aware of the influence of art and design from Asian and African cultures in my jewellery. Unconsciously, elements can always be traced back to this. A common thread in my work is my injured back.Statement
I had a lifelong passion for jewellery. I am an avid collector of ethnic jewellery. Most of which I discovered during my extensive travels.I am fascinated by the significance of jewellery in different cultures, the surprising use of unconventional materials, the lavishly opulent decorations, and the power, which is often attributed to jewellery. I am fascinated by amulets and talisman.
As a curator, I organised many projects and exhibitions integrating ethnic jewellery collections, combined with contemporary jewellery.
I have been a curator and cultural entrepreneur since 1979. I have organised numerous exhibitions, lectures, fairs, shows, art trails etc. for cultural organisations and museums in the Netherlands and abroad. I developed concepts and executes projects in the areas of design and fashion and jewellery. I am particularly drawn towards projects with requiring an interdisciplinary approach. I have undertaken workshops and given lectures at Technical Schools and Universities in the Netherlands and abroad. I was also a member of various Boards and Commissions. Together with a colleague I founded Blendix Design, meant for Dutch / Chinese design projects in China and in the Netherlands. We organized projects in China.
I found out that I could find everything I needed in the Chinese porcelain city Jingdezhen. Porcelain gives me the opportunity to tell stories. Sometimes the story arises while I work with the clay. With porcelain, I can create any form I like. I make wearable jewellery and more and more monumental works. Every jewel is unique. Of course, the jewellery in a collection is strongly related to each other, but still, they are unique. I exhibited my jewellery in the Netherlands, China, France, Italy, etc.
About the Cixi Collection:
I feel a strong connection to China, especially the porcelain city of Jingdezhen. I am interested in the history of China and have become fascinated by the Empress Dowager Cixi, one of the most influential women in Chinese history. Between 1861 and 1908, she unofficially ruled the Qing dynasty.
My black porcelain jewelry collection of necklaces is inspired by aspects of her clothes, and accessories she and her entourage wore. They wore beautiful jewelry, clothes, fabrics, hats and shoes and they had special hairstyles.
No foot binding, which she put an end to.
All these details can be found in abstracted form in this jewelry collection of black porcelain and horsehair. The necklaces for women, as well as men, are composed of beads and small objects, to wear on the chest or back, all referring to the court in the Forbidden City during Cixi's reign. Cixi also loved black porcelain, so called ‘Famille Noir’. A stone's throw from my home in Rotterdam, ‘Famille Noir’ from China is kept in the collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Black porcelain feels so close!
> TiNik: Catalogue of Karin van Paassen's jewellery brand
> OriGiN: Catalogue of Karin van Paassen's Porcelain jewellery
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