Urban Jewellery, Bejewelled Cities (R-10912)

Jewellery and the city play an important role in my design practice. Through artistic and discursive research, I want to explore the relationship between jewellery as artefacts and the city as context. Practice-based and process-led research will result in textual and visual output, enhanced by the 'dialogue walk' as a research method. The research starts from three topics that are relevant in the discourses of both jewellery design and urban design: matter, ornament(ation) and body. The exchange between precious and base materials in jewellery and the city, and their underlying meanings, forms the beginning to explore matter. The research into ornament(ation) starts from the dual definition of the word, both synonymous for jewellery and for decorative additions to buildings. The decoupling of the relational cohesion between body and jewellery, and body and city is central to the latter theme. I will question how the city and the body connect and how to return urban dimensions to jewellery. This project thoroughly investigates my design practice by researching analogies between jewellery and the city. It also positions the urban context as an operating field for the discipline of jewellery design and by extension for the wider design field. This specific context seems to present itself as a new democratic context for the jewellery discipline, which has lost its relevance in the applied arts. Finally, this artistic research examines and analyzes a cross-disciplinary way of working.

Keywords:Design Methodology

Disciplines:Urban anthropology, Jewellery design and gold/silversmith arts, Installation, Jewellery