The Box

My grandmother used to have a box of jewellery which was stolen when I was a child. She did not have anything left except her earrings and wedding rings after she passed away. The absence of all her sentimental objects inspired me to substitute the missing pieces by making new ones, not only for her but for all my other ancestor women who had long died and I had never met. Of course, I don't know what these pieces looked like, so the creation of The Box is a complete fantasy. Using the stories I have heard of them, the photographs I inherited and my feelings towards these women I imagined their everyday routines and how they must have treasured the jewellery pieces they possessed. I imagined the landscape they lived in and all the tragedy they experienced during the 20th century.

In The Box I started to play with the line between reality and fantasy, creating a new harmony, a kontrapunkt, for an entirely lost connection between real, tangible objects and the people I associate them with, who are unreachable. But jewellery here represents also an illusionary idea. The recipients of these pieces are long dead, and it became obvious to

me that I should let go of wearability and functionality to focus on shapes, memories and emotions. My main research topic and curiosity in contemporary jewellery is to understand the boundaries of what jewellery is and I am curious to explore this question and understand the significance of actualizing objects on the edge of this field.