Birgit Thalau, Rich Repair

The notion of mending has permeated this recent body of work, entitled “rich repair”. Even as my skill set has grown since I started making jewellery, I enact repairs that look futile and fragile: I use unnoticed and undervalued materials or products and make an attempt to handle them in the way that they take on a more stable and organised form, despite their condition. Various treatments enable the poor matters to ‘return’ to the private sphere: my jewellery pieces do not purport to be of high value, however, other potentials, like versatility, attention or acceptance for imperfections emerge from this activity.

The booklet “rich repair” is both, a catalogue and an insight into my source of inspiration: as an artistic research, I look for traces reflecting gestures and manual practices and photograph those. By enlarging the pictures taken with the help of a photocopy machine, I do away with the original colouration and get a more rough-textured image. Then, I manipulate the black and white reproductions by gently over painting specific areas by hand. Through this old and contemporary technique, retouching, I am able to isolate details I am fascinated by.

This new edition shows a collection of rather unsophisticated, but complex jewellery works, as well as drawings related to those pieces. Each page shows a different layout, which has been informed by the two- and three-dimensional works.

>> For more Informations check the website.

Short texts in English
Content: Birgit Thalau
Design: Arnaud Hanon
Photography: Tom Lucas


 





With support from: Ministère de la Culture, Luxembourg