This paper looks upon monsters as a medium; how concentration of fear can result in the demonisation of individuals. It explores how the use of craft, with a focus on stop motion animation, can be used as a tool to build empathy and help to heal fragmentations of society. Working with contemporary mythologies, crafted techniques are metaphorically related to the fragility of societal structures and collective narratives. Hand crafting references relics of consumer culture and explores variable autonomies over personal narrative, investigating imbalances of power.

Abstract

Modus Operandi is an attempt to conceptualize and materialize the intriguing difference between owning an object and owning your own identity. To be mirrored by a physical object, something with a tangible presence, when your identity feels slippery and volatile. The work is approached by mixing contemporary and historical symbols and ornaments to convey a sense of how our heritage affects the present and the eclectic mix that constitutes a human being.

This project is based on the creation of a modular system for making a candlestick, which will tell your personal history – both past, present and future. A modular object as an invitation to introspection. A domestic candlestick to mirror yourself, in your own home, to create a link between your inner self and the rest of the world. Traditional materials, such as bronze and brass are used to make the candlestick. Beyond this contemporary or somehow misplaced symbols and techniques are incorporated, in order to create tension between tradition and contemporary identity markers. Fueled by the inspiration from the alchemical holistic view of the world and using symbols one can view the candlestick as one’s own spiritual alchemical lab to conduct the Magnum opus.

An emergency is a speeded-up emergence, a state of change that accelerates beyond the control of the system in which it takes place and results in either death or necessary development, for an establishment of a new rhythm.

This work is an investigation on the limits and possibilities of contemporary corpus practices. My aim for it is to be reflective of my own ambivalence towards the field in which my silversmithing practice is situated, and to promote the urgency of collaborative craft, in traditional as well as contemporary contexts.

This investigation has resulted in the collaborative corpus project Poetic Justice, together with Klara Brydewall Sandquist, promoting two separate feminist agendas, in order to elevate them both and underline their entanglement. One being to manifest and justify women’s anger, and the other to oppose the cult of the individual genius and suggest alternate possibilities in relation to historical corpus in the contemporary field of craft. It is also a way for us to highlight the urgency of supporting, elevating and celebrating each other’s practices and purposes, through a closely intertwined way of working that investigates where objects begin and end, in space as well as in time.

Now and then other people’s comments and/or behaviour reminds me that I look different and that my external features are connected to something beyond my Swedish identity. My black hair, dark brown eyes and my brownish skin color talk about something else. My appearance is connected to an identity, cultural identity and a country I have little knowledge of and a language I do not master. But still the way I look is a part of my heritage, a part of who I am and a part of me which I am proud of. It makes me wonder what actually makes up an identity and the power we all possess in deciding what or who another person is based on appearance. What do we become in the eyes of the beholder?

Personal experiences from being Swedish, and adopted from another country, becomes the starting point for my investigation where the color of the skin leads to questions about norms, categorisations and the power of labelling another person. Living in the western world, my skin color automatically place me outside the norm. In a way that amazes me, that a single color can determine so much.

As a jeweller maker in this degree project I make brooches. I use them as a method and as tools to both investigate the relationship between personal and social identity and to shed light on how structures in society and other peoples gazes push us into categories consciously and unconsciously. I use my objects as conversations pieces to reflect on history, present and future, from my perspective. There is always a beginning, but it is  in the middle of the process it all comes alive. This is where I explore material, techniques and methods and where the brooches are born. They all have a history and part of it is public. At first sight you see the surface. But the brooches are like our bodies, they also have an inside/backside which creates an intimate relationship with the wearer. The brooches are more than ornamented pins, I want them to raise awareness of diversity, different perspectives, care and their ability to communicate as they move through various places attached in different ways to the body.

My degree project, Who I am and who you see, touches upon questions and emotions about belonging, inclusion and exclusion and the state of being in-between. What makes up an identity? What different parts make up a whole? Which layers are added and which are peeled off? All these questions triggers my curiosity and search for more knowledge about the human being and being human.

 In this paper I look at my practice and master project through a broader lens – tying it with theoretical concepts in particular that of Rosi Braidotti`s book Metamorphoses becoming woman-animal-insect. I show how my practical and theoretical dimensions meet through the mediums and narratives I work with. Performance and ritual centralize the practice whilst crafted objects and residue is significant in the process using the materials of wood, textile and clay. I have this year introduced gold as embodied practice by eating it- I mention alchemy in that respect as an inward essence. Metaplasm is the title of the master project incorporating the fleshy and linguistic signifier coined by Donna Harraway in The  Companion Species Manifesto, in 2016, as my project unfold into text, performance and crafted sculptures. 

Abstract.

What is it that I want to do and where does my practice fit in? In the beginning of this project I was not only confused about what I wanted to do I was also a bit lost in life. I saw the opportunity to work around the therapeutic aspects of making.

For me making has always been a way towards fulfillment, often creations come along in the moment and the pleasure is sudden. Then I quickly move along, looking for new kicks.

I have been struggling with seeing my own work and reflecting on its qualities, not trusting the result of my intuitive process.

At tension.

The first sketches I was working on were small wax figures, they worked like a journal sort of. I would shape it from my mood or thoughts that day. I moved on to casting these objects and the quality of pewter would weigh them down, there was a connection with these small heavy bodies and my own. But their weight was not enough, there had to be more force than gravity holding them back. 

I am part of and dependent on a bigger unit – humanity. I am one of the small parts that build up this organism. Being human is an identity that I cannot choose, sometimes it is heavy to carry this role but it is also a support – and necessary for my survival.

–

My text describes some of the experiments I have performed, a few pages from my journal and some thoughts on which I base my making. My method has been an ethnographic exploration with myself and some objects I created as tools for researching my own body in relation to public spaces, using similar methods as Gösta Arvastson and Billy Ehn describe in their book Etnografiska Observationer (Arvastson & Ehn 2009). 

I noticed unconscious synchronised patterns of movement performed by people inhabiting public spaces. After some experiments I realized that I feel insecure when I break those patterns. It became clear to me that my body is programmed to, and does its best, to fit into certain norms. However, sometimes I am incapable or don´t want to conform.

Better than nature is an exploration originating in virtual spaces and the speculative objects inhabiting them. It is about the inherent (un)balance between humans and nature’s materials, and how we interact with processed versions of organic constituents. My physical work is composed of handcrafted components and readymades, all rendering different aspects of a forest and consequently they create a simulated utopia of things.

Through the process of depicting symbols derived from the realm of a forest this project’s aim has been to approach nature landscapes with the intent of highlighting my disconnectedness from nature and its materials.

With this paper my target has been to contextualize my artistic practice from discussions based on my practical and theoretical research; A blend of lived experiences, investigations of the characteristics found in terrestrial materials, organic and compassionate surfaces and the function of ornament in our time.

 My subject is invisibility.

In order to thoroughly investigate the subject, I applied the concept of invisibility inside, outside and without the physical body. I have investigated what has to give way to that which comes into focus, and the shift in value that occurs when something is highlighted or added at the expense of something else. To avoid seeing something is to prevent it from taking up space and consequently drain it of value. We reduce the uncomfortable by placing it, consciously or unconsciously, in the background hoping it will disappear. The act of avoidence gives a false illusion that the situation could be reduced to a point of vanishing. As if that which has not been seen, never happened.

Not being able to acknowledge the uncomfortable could be the result of not wanting to recognize difficult aspects concerning oneself, such as shame or guilt. The fear of having to identify with feelings that negatively charged makes the reflection unbearable to meet. An uncomfortable situation can therefore appear so piercing to the eye that it becomes almost invisible.

Through my process, I chose to use psychoanalysis and phenomenology as different tools of perspective to try to get closer to what, how and why we see what we see. This includes how we for instance handle the idea of someone or something when the physical body is absent. How we, through traces of human behavior relate to an object by the motion and technique that shaped it. Or the idea of being able to relate to the idea of an object, and thus "actualize" things that are not really there. I also investigated the shaping of one's identity. How we sometimes construct our bodies, stretch and transform ourselves to be seen. Where the qualities that others recognize and appreciate become the very thing you begin to visualize, maybe even identify with. A place of transformation, where bodies can take the shape of others, or take the shape of the contact with others. But also a place of reduction, a struggle between bodies where one is reduced to feed the other. I have also investigated how ignored bodies have to relate to the ruling norms, surroundings and laws created by others, and how the passive room can become an active component that reveals you as out of place.

For me "invisibility" speaks a destructive and fragile language. I am therefore using materials such as glass, porcelain and lead in my work consisting of corpus objects. I define corpus as body related objects that find their context in the eating, and through eating it incorporates the table and craft tradition of silversmithing. As a body related object, corpus becomes a “substitute body” or "a body in my place." Corpus can squeeze, lift, divide, carry, devour, hold, leak, hide and preserve. Bodily functions transferred into another body. I even believe it possible to transfer part of ones identity into corpus. I decided to let the context of focus shift from the table to the relationship corpus has to the human body. Since corpus, unlike for instance jewellery, has no acknowledged place on the human body, it instead finds itself relating to human behavior. Because of the space between user and object, it’s another kind of intimate relation that also connects to the movement of the human and the space in which she moves. My creative work is therefore explained by other bodies / body parts closely linked to our everyday lives.

Working with the definition of corpus as a substitute body, I have chosen the concept of "destructive prostheses" to interpret my view of invisibility.

At best anger is problematic for most of us and especially an issue for women (and other discriminated groups). True a collaborative craft project focusing on silver objects, I investigate female anger and how it is perceived. Also, how the prevention of acting it out silences our need for change. I use the aesthetics of magic to reference the judging of women acting outside of set rules, and also as a tactic of female liberation.

My degree project is an exploration of fragility and impermanence in objects. An attempt to find a language for it and to put words on a bodily feeling. Where objects are given space through an installation. Like an extension, or mirroring, of my body or your body. I’m thinking about the complexity of human, trapped emotions and fragments, like puzzle pieces or layers of memories. I’m thinking about vulnerability and tears, unredeemed tears. When the first tear rolls down the cheek there is no stop. A bridge is created between an inner world and the outer when sensitive experiences are allowed to come to the surface and be released.

My work is about the feeling of standing in between two worlds of my cultural heritage. To feel connected but at the same time not connected to them. The feeling of missing out in one of my cultural heritage because of the language that I do not fully speak. I use a traditional craft from that side to build a bridge to fill the gap. It is about combining my heritages and the connection/disconnection and fuse them together into one as I am a person of two cultures. By not putting myself in a box that the society wants me to fit in to, I challenge that norm also in my work. I transformed the traditional craft placed in a room of a house to become jewelry. The wearer is allowed to choose what kind of jewelery it is and it can be placed on many different ways. My work is about investigate the meeting of craft on a body, and body in a craft. Its about to invite the Thai practice to my Swedish practice and vice versa and fuse them together. 

“Who are you?” cradled in the mouth of those closest to you may present a welcome

pause for contemplation of one’s being. But in those unknown or seemingly strange, an

unwelcome suggestion at our fickle position so often between Self and Other. It is in the

gaze of another that we must learn to be Read. To be outfitted in a moment with a

series of words and condensed descriptions. To contend with the lurking shadow of

judgement we both give and receive. To deal with the unknowing or deep knowing that

we are not exactly as we are perceived. Learning to Read the Flesh speaks to

embodied fiction of these stereotyped finalities. It is built from my journey of contending

and learning to be seen, Read, and ultimately to embrace my Other. It acknowledges

the destructive quality of Shame but hopes to center the continuation of its Story. It is

this Story from which the face of Other can be rebuilt and Self re-defined. It is in this

space I hope we can all find the freedom to Play.

This paper presents an investigation in stages of transformation between body and ornament to show upon their fluid relationship and their role for the creation of human identity. I see the act of adorning the body as an act of desire, in which we take part to become something more elevated than our original state of being. I use my background as a jeweller and the body as the territory for investigating these acts of transformation. Through material explorations I examine how we mirror ourselves in the things we make and how we reinvent our bodies through making. I compare the role of the maker with the scientist and discuss the increased interest in the body and its relation to a more and more virtual reality. I make links between ancient body modifications and human enhancement within new technology and throughout the paper I discuss my work in relation to other artists work and theorists relating to visual practices.

This document explores and expands my perspective on dealing

with mental health issues, grieving and sorrow through a material

based practice. It portrays private spaces that grows

and seeks universal connections. Feelings that is persevered

between layers that takes physical form between the skin and

the fabric.

Adornments manifests themselves through the body, and when

they are passive and sleeping, they dream of belonging.

Title of work: Electrolyte

Artist: Judit Fritz

Konstfack, Ädellab

ABSTRACT

How much of the ocean have I filtered while in tears?

Many times, while growing up on an island have I laid eyes on the enormous surrounding body of water and wondered – is the sorrow still in there? In small portions the human body and the bodies of nature exposes each other as part of their own content. Offering a glimpse into a constant material flow. Diffusing the boundaries between object and subject. A material flow that makes it impossible to tell what anything really is, because it has already evolved. My tears taste like the ocean. So does my sweat. I Find comfort in knowing I constantly take part in something that is beyond my human comprehension. That I don’t need to fully understand why I am here, because it is obvious that I, and everyone else play a part. We just don’t know the whole scene.

Though a post humanistic angle I have investigated the close relation between matter, material, the human body and the bodies of nature, to find a connection point which decreases the hierarchy between object and subject. By crystallizing matter derived from human body fluids and building a machinery that portrays the process I invite the perceiver to a closeup of their part in a never-ending system. The agency of this project is to raise questions rather than finding answers, as I believe the human is in need of reevaluating their way of thinking when it comes to material and resources.

I have tried to shift focus from the human perspective and self-centeredness into a set where we participate rather than being the perceiver. Alchemy was used as both a method and as an art historical reference, as the alchemical mindset is to learn through the act of making. This has been blended with modern days technology and imagination to build a body of work that balances between science and art. While being heavily based on theory and research, the body of work is a translation in which I allowed myself to freely portray how I imagine the travelling of matter is systemized. I created a working place where studies of the unseen is concentrated and visualized. Where the many sorrows and the hard work of human beings crystallize into solids, becoming nature again. Or was it ever not? And vice versa.

Throughout the project, even though separated from everything that I connect to being human, the crystals made from pure matter derived from sweat and tears could not be separated from the knowledge of their origin. Even as objects, I see them as subjects. A conclusion that shed light upon the relativeness between bodies. A conclusion that brings life into what is often seen as dead, simultaneously showing the complex machinery of an emotional being.

The things we have an intimate connection to, handle, collect, and move around with us, are treasures that we need to hold on to. They are important in coping with the balance of movement and stability in a fast-changing world. This project is an investigation of the relationship between people and objects through the making and handling of stones. I explore why and how we connect intimately with physical objects, how they become treasures to us and what it means. Through digging into the stones, connecting to their story of endurance, change and solidity, and eventually letting them go, I explore the role of touching and paying attention, in making and relating to objects and transformation. The stone objects are made from pieces of rock I have collected while travelling. All of them have been transformed by human hands before I picked them out, and many have been given out and then returned to me. Through this ongoing process of transformation and physical encounters, it is becoming clear to me that connection is not only about solidity and stillness, but also about being part of the transformation. Stone as a material is both solid and changing. I aim to make objects of stone that attract and encourage people to engage with them – to experience the pleasure and groundedness that slowing down, zooming in and getting in touch can offer.

This paper presents an investigation in how a jewelry artist understands the life and death, permanence and impermanence of human, objects, and other creatures, by communicating still life in the form of jewelry. I will bring up a fact that death and impermanence have been forgotten by my peers, and use still life and contemporary jewelry to discuss it.

The paper mainly talks about: my opinion upon life and death in modern society, why and how did I related them with still life paintings, how did I make my jewelry based on still life, and discusst a dilemma I met: how will jewelry be when they are on and not on people’s body.

In this project I let sorrow speak through the objects and give the absence a place to be present. Through the creating process and material shaping, I portray the complexity of my own sorrows. Personal, but not private. With my examples and my objects I want to arouse something personal touching on the theme of grief.

I believe and am convinced that everybody needs to get in touch with their grief at some point. Of course, we need to take the time to process it in different ways, but I would like to say that materials and objects can help us get in touch and act as a link we can all relate to. Only if we listen. Although my belief is obvious, I have become well aware that not everyone can or knows how to do so. With my work I want you to get this help. I want you to be present with the absence.

This paper presents an investigation of the human need of being needed and how dependent we are of each other. I am dealing with my fears of temporary relationships, temporary meetings and the Individualized society, it is about the fast-paced  lives we live and how there is no time for stopping and taking care of each other and our surroundings.I use my craft to reconnect, talk about new or old relationships, and the impact relationships has on the development in one another. I discuss the perspective we have on time and where we have our focus in the moment. Connecting it to the slow movement, making time for the moment that we are in, everything happens in the present.

This paper presents how I came to create this collection of jewellery that is intimately tied to memories and fragments. How I have conducted my research about collections, museums, jewellery, and artists. Incorporating those findings into the workshop and the way the pieces came to be. Made in silver, zinc and iron, and with use of the techniques casting and etching. 

And conclusively how a collection took form with this idea to give a sense of treasures or a language from an unknown world or place. Somewhere where time has passed and the individual pieces convey the notion that they are fragments of a greater whole, part of a story or memory that we can sense but not quite reckon, not to be fully understood. 

 This paper presents my Masters project Sadness and Repetition. The project is centered around artistic expression and repetitive processes serving a journal-keeping. This process is inspired partly by ancient traditions of prayer beads and partly by modern cultural practices of documenting everyday life through diaries. Drawing from previous work on other people’s feelings of sorrow, this project focuses on my own personal experience of everyday sadness. The journal-keeping consists of handmade steel links, connected into chains, on the one hand, and the deconstruction of a rag rug on the other. The work is framed in a wider context of personal trauma, societal mental health issues as well as female perspective.

Seeing, getting to know and trying to understand the world through my crafting hands

Using these hands as tools to make a difference, to make a change

Changing and refining a material

Changing an attitude

Elevating and creating possibilities

Carrying, changing and passing on knowledge and crafting traditions

Craft and knowledge as power and fortune

In a place that has been abandoned I have collected the human-made traces. Preserving the perishability of places and people. Saving the small memory. To hold close and pass on to the next. Placing them in a jewelry context where we may care for them more tenderly. To approach the people through adornment and wearing. I don't want to physically mark anyone, but I still want to come close. A piercing of the clothes: brooches.

You who left it. I who collected. Next one to wear. Where all of us become involved and equally important. With the traces taken from the place, I add my own imprint in the craftsmanship of the jewelry. Each brooch fragile and where the next one, the wearer, will become part of our traces and history. Each brooch with a part of us and in transformation.

Traces can be left, and memories preserved. They can be passed on through the visible, the tangible, the sound and the anecdotes. They can be experienced or relived when we feel, listen and see. Therefore, I needed to pass on the traces in several ways. Through the brooches and through film. For more people to take part of. Where the next one can see, hear and feel a place; its traces, stories and the imagination created in the experience.

A liberation process. A process of unlearning. A process of finding back. Back to the playfulness, joy and unconcern of a kid. The imagination and curiosity. Boundlessness. Finding back to these places where imagination and reality interfuse. Past, present and future intertwine. Dreams and memories seamlessly merge into one. Time ticks in a different way. Even fades away. Becomes unimportant. Trying to understand a language with help of another one. To understand the structure. The pattern. Transmitting and translating. Synchronising. Getting lost in between melodies. Feeling foreign. But finding home. Finding a way. Creating it. Constructing it. Like characters create a Word. Words construct a sentence. Sentences a text. Stories. Worlds. Worlds where everything can be anything. Where everybody can be anything. Everything is possible. Nothing confined. Limited. Worlds full of adventures and experiences. Every detail important. Care. Worlds where all the stress, pressure and request for efficiency and productiveness vanish. Where all the norms, demands and expectations disperse and give room for Wunder to unfold. 

(Föremål för förändring)

Ett specifikt objektfenomen har stått i centrum för mitt undersökande. Detta fenomen uppkommer när ett objekt kopieras, och under kopieringsprocessen misstolkas, då originalets funktion är okänd för kopieraren. 

På grund av misstolkningen tenderar kopian att förlora originalets funktion, vilken då ofta skiftar till att endast uttrycka identitet och status. Då denna identitets-status-funktion även är högst applicerbar på smycken, blir fenomenet en modell som tillåter mig att omvandla nutida praktiskt funktionella objekt till framtida smycken.

Inför omvandlingen av de funktionella objekten identifierar jag de beståndsdelar som jag tror är mest vitala för igenkänningen av originalen. Jag vrider, vänder och förskjuter sedan dessa detaljer genom en hypotetisk framtida kedja av missförstånd. 

Smyckena behåller genom denna metod subtila essenser av originalen. 

Jag använder mig av material som representerar de olika världar som de framtida objekten stammar från. Jag vill få betraktaren att leva sig in i kopieringsresorna som verken färdats genom och föreställa sig de uttryck som verken plockat upp och gjort till sina på vägen. 

This paper presents an investigation of how a jewelry artist understands the life/death cycleof nature and natural processes, the relationship between the human (body), nature,materials, and jewelry, by communicating in the form of jewelry.I will discuss the relationship between human, nature and jewelry from many aspects. Themovement of objects, life and death, how jewelry shows the position and state of humanin nature and the relationship with nature, as well as the significance to the contemporarysociety. My main method is jewelry. My jewelry is emotional and expresses the series ofcollision and balance when humankind meets nature, and the acceptance of life and death. 

This paper investigates metaphorical and phenomenological aspects of shimmer, reflection, membrane and movement. By exploring the interface of knowledge through the lens of materiality, the aim is to examine how the plasticity of light and shadows might create animating reflections and dissolving surfaces. Of particular interest is the undefined quality of shimmer and how it can be interpreted as a transitional in-between stage of displaced and fluid boundaries. Further on, the work explores the power of portals – both visually but also in the physical and emotional engagement with materials and techniques.

The installation Mystery of Matter and Magic of Presence  is based upon a dialogical method where the atmosphere might be understood as a space-filling materiality itself. The work expresses the material’s state as well as the ephemeral qualities around it. It offers a counterweight to a hard, violent and narcissistic aspect of the material biographies of metals in general, and aluminum in particular. 

The research consists mainly of sources on Byzantine and Medieval Art history. Sources that also engage with the role of language, poetry and etymology for our understanding of material culture and history.  

We walk through most of our everyday life without constantly thinking of what we are doing in that exact moment. I mean, that would be absolutely exhausting. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Hand to cup, grab, lift and onwards to the mouth. But what is interesting is that we refer to these actions and doings as nothing. They seem to have no value to us at all. What have you been doing today? Nah, nothing. Nothing at all. As well in our commute to work. Sometimes we step onto a bus or train and when we take off our coat at work we almost don’t even know what happened between point a and point b. Does it seem familiar?  My work has come to evolve around our everyday routines. How in those moments of unconscious nothingness we actually do so many things and most of all encouter so many objects. When we walk through a door, pick up a tool, open a box, we grab a handle and the bodily encounter is made through the hand. I’ve come to explore how it seems that the hand has its own life when we are in this state. How the objects in our everyday call for the hand, directs the hand, makes a choreography for the hand. I have recorded the hands movement in different media in order to get a new view of something familiar and try to find new realities to what we think we know.  What happens when the hand and a handle meet in a routine? What does it actually look like? Why is it important to become aware of?  I believe by changing our attitude to things in our environment, we can also change the attitude to people around us. Changing perspectives on the most ordinary everyday chores can generate new thoughts about the commonplace and like the butterfly effect also create a more permissive society.  

Diamanten har alltid lockat människan. Lika klar och glittrande som vattnet skiner diamanten i människans händer. I vattnet kan människan urskilja sin egen spegelbild, bli medveten om sin kropp och hon förstår att det är från vattnet kroppen får liv. Människokroppen består av vatten och läcker vatten. Hård och steril förblir diamanten lika död som levande. 

Min konstnärliga praktik drivs av lusten att kravlöst och lekfullt få utforska de frågeställningar jag jobbar med och kunna gestalta dom med ett symboliskt perspektiv. Ur ett smyckesrelaterat perspektiv undersöker mitt examensarbete relationen mellan kroppen och objekt, där diamantens association till vatten står i fokus. Människan förlänger kroppen med objekt. Relationen mellan dessa borde beskrivas som en sammansmältning. Objekt som blir kropp, kropp som blir objekt. Kroppar gör smycken, smycken blir kropp, kropp är vatten och cirkeln sluts. 

(Re)make stone

Minerals are separated and melted out of the ground at a tremendous rate. They are transformed to be everywhere in our everyday lives, in the buildings around you, in the food you eat, in the supplements and medicines you take and in the smartphone in your hand. For every mineral based artifact you see, there's an even bigger hole in the ground.

I have mined the minerals from our surroundings: Manure, dyes, stainless steel, makeup, insulation, deodorant, pesticides, porcelain, preservatives, salt, anti-lump agents, concrete, silicon and more. I want to build a relationship and get to know, go from static products and materials and start mixing, burning, dissolving and merging. Let it react and become stone again. 

I hope my project can contribute to a broader understanding, new questions and discussions about what the minerals we have around us once were, are and can be.

The paper talks about the topic of pursuing the perfect

body and how we are controlled by the standards of per-

fections. I chose this topic because of the development of

the Chinese gym industry and personal experience . Many

people try to pursue the standards of perfect bodies and

use these standards to define themselves. Most people

take it for granted that our bodies should look a certain

way. In this paper, I want to question these standards and

raise people’s awareness of the image of their bodies. I will

also talk about my opinions about bodies.  

In my practical work, I mix different metals with different

values into one piece and shape the material into vessel

forms. I use the material and the forms to question

perfections and the attitude towards bodies in the society .

Then I make the vessels into jewelry pieces to discuss how

our bodies are treated as jewelry . I use my jewelry works to

question what our bodies are and help people see their

bodies in a different perspective. 

This paper concerns the ordinary stories. It is about the forgotten and the things that have gone unnoticed. It is about female history and is a political exploration into what and who is allowed to take space. I focus on everyday life in a domestic space, where I see these things that are discarded, often are overlooked and not talked about.

I explore society from a kitchen point of view with a grandmother’s life in focus. It is a story about everyday rituals in the home, which are of an important cultural deed. The objects support her in these rituals, and they also help me to tell.

I investigate the memorial space and with my artistic practice I create a room to remember those who are soon no longer with us.

In this project I work within the craft-field of corpus. I use the tradition of corpus as a method of working but also as a tool to discuss my subject. As corpus is talking about class and hierarchies it creates a counterweight to my project.  

 19/10 – Field diary

Waiting isn’t visible, but you can feel it. It cannot be touched but it can touch you. You can feel it in your body, all the way from your head and down to your toes. Waiting is impossible to lock down; it is fluent and floating between us. Waiting is between you and me, creating a room.

With my work ”In Between” I am investigating the term waiting.

Waiting is a big part of our daily life. We are waiting for new episodes of our favourite tv-shows, the laundry to dry, and the dinner to be ready. We are waiting for something to happen, something to change. The emotions concerning waiting can be filled with expectation, longing and joy, but also with anxiety and stomach pain.

Waiting is something we do physically, by example, standing in line. But it is also psychological, a mental state. Waiting is a space where time is central. There is a void in waiting, a loneliness and passivity that I find interesting.

Waiting is something that is taken for granted, something that just happens. Something that lures in the shadow of what is going to become. There are rooms for waiting, waiting rooms. Big parts of our lives are waiting rooms. What are we doing there, and what is important in waiting?

I am interested in the space in between where time is on-going. Still it is like a vacuum, a borderless space where we spend so much time. What happens here and why is nothing happening?

I have chosen to focus my embodied work on female waiting. The female body have layers of waiting, both physically but also mentally. It is important for me to enhance the history of women that have been waiting. Thanks to those women, who have been waiting in the shadow of someone, I have the opportunity to make this work. The making in waiting is important. In today’s society, that has become more and more traditional, we have forgotten this waiting. A waiting of change. A week ago women were marching all around the world for women’s rights. It is 2017 and we need to march for our rights? How long should we wait to live in an equal society, for all?

”Waiting is in our bodies” (Beckman 2009:110).

I think the body is a good introduction to both corpus and jewellery. They both need a body to understand its function, just like waiting.

In my work I see the waiting room, the in between, become my corpus as it function as a container for me, my thoughts and for waiting. Jewellery is an extension of my body as well as a way for me to communicate. I see the difference between corpus and jewellery in my work. With corpus I can show you the room of waiting, and with jewellery I can show you how waiting feels like.

Heteronormativity is one of the most powerful norms in our society today, a norm that many take for granted as natural. Heteronormativity is seldom discussed, it often becomes a non-question. However, the effects can be substantial for those who are outside of the norm. In my work I am discussing these issues and how it affects every day life for queer people. The work consists of four art jewellery pieces, with the four titles discussing the subject: desire, activism, owning and adjusting.

Jewellery is an old language that speaks about status, individuality and hierarchy. The wearing tells us so much about the person. A pin shows the wearers political views and diamonds shows status. We need to expand the field of jewellery in order to question what jewellery really is, so that we can use jewellery to widen the acceptance of the individual. I want to investigate and queer the relationship between jewellery, wearing and the body. I have worked with big and small object. 

Mitt arbete handlar om jorden, världen och mig själv. Om en känsla av främmandeskap inför verkligheten, och en vilja att hitta sätt att återanknyta till den. I min uppsats berättar jag om vad jag tänkt på och gjort i min process.

Tänk om vår plats som människor på jorden var en annan? Tänk om vi var mindre, tänk om andra, icke-mänskliga saker var större? Eller tänk om vi var mer eller mindre än människor, eller andra saker mer människo-lika än vad vi ser?

Jag har i mitt projekt velat återanknyta till mitt ”barndoms-jag” och de ”jag” som jag varit genom åren, som ett sätt att öva på perspektivskiftena och förmågan att föreställa mig alternativa verkligheter som jag haft och mist under vägen. Min metod för att praktiskt omförhandla verkligheten varit att jobba intuitivt, lekfullt, med olika aspekter av mitt barnasinne. Jag har utgått från idén om att när min perception av verkligheten varit annorlunda, som när jag var barn, har den ändå varit lika mycket verklighet som den jag uppfattar nu. Att återanknyta till den är att förändra, eller förlänga, min nuvarande verklighetsbild.

Med hög sannolikhet tittar du just nu på en yta av glas. Bakom skärmen ligger ett rutnät beståendes av tusentals pixlar som formar det du ser.

Den digitala revolutionen har underlättat våra liv på det mest fantastiska sätt. Men i sociala rum kring ett matbord har det blivit en kamp om uppmärksamheten mellan två olika världar, en virtuell och en verklig.

Mitt arbete handlar om den visuella konsumtionen på Instagram. Hur vi ständigt vill se mer, hur vi vänjer oss vid belöning och bekräftelse. Vi smygtittar in i folks liv och är nästan alltid uppkopplade. Ett nytt beteende har snabbt utvecklats där vi väljer att kolla på telefonen i stället för att samtala och se varandra IRL.

Likt en Wunderkammer har jag samlat objekt från världens alla hörn i ett rum. Av nyfikenhet att försöka förstå den digitala frestelsen. Att samla fragment på en och samma plats för att skapa en helhet.

Symboler, sida vid sida. Hierarkier. Ett kontrollerat kaos. Delar av glas. Bit efter bit, pixel efter pixel.

I min gestaltning har jag materialiserat det digitala genom tusentals bitar av glas – och fogar som skapar friktion för ett febrilt scrollande finger.

Traditions that shape our identity and beliefs are constantly undergoing transformation through our interactions with new cultures. At the same time, these interactions enhance our awareness of where we come from, and where we truly belong. In this thesis I investigate the history of jewellery in India through a contemporary perspective and interpretation. My project narrates my transformative journey from the rich tapestry of Indian traditions towards the contemporary western culture. The subject of Indian jewellery is vast and complex, the enquiry is just the beginning of the journey. Therefore, my goal is to discover linkages between the age-old traditions and the fast-changing world of today. I create a dialogue between traditional, ritualistic Indian jewellery and an irreverent choice of materials and methods that have been conceived from my experiences in the West. Through this dialog, I explore the push and pull between traditional ethos and modern sensibilities, and the transformation it engenders.

Based on what body adornment has been throughout history, this project investigates what it might be in the future. The possibilities, forms and methods of body adornment has changed and will continue to change over time, along with our societal and environmental shifts as well as with developments in science and technology. Our bodies are increasingly perceived as malleable objects that we can modify, enhance and improve. I use speculation as a method to explore how the human body may develop and be modified in the future. I envision a world where we have become increasingly intertwined with technologies, where environmental changes and our lifestyle have affected our biology, and where our bodies have continued to be altered based on social norms. Through this project I have become some kind of contemporary Frankenstein scientist, although I am not in a laboratory but in a jewellery workshop. My objects, which I call potential jewellery, or maybe-jewellery, are presented in an installation in the form of a clinical setting. It is a representation of where body adornment meets medical technology, where jewellery meets prostheses and implants. This project does not have any answers or a clear message about what is right or wrong – it is based on a curiosity without having a conclusion in mind. The installation is meant to be a reminder that our bodies are always adorned, modified and in transformation – that we are in an ongoing metamorphosis from one state to another. 

With a staring point in personal memories and experiences this project practically and theoretically investigates ways in which informal groups, based on male gender identification, works towards exclusion of those of female gender identification. And how this exclusion creates hierarchies and contributes to the reproduction of a certain type of gender pattern, in which masculinity is defined as an opposite of femininity, and where the masculine needs to be separated from the feminine in order to maintain its masculinity. I've used my own experiences and a theoretical base to highlight situations in my life where this exclusion have become apparent. I’ve worked in relation to a tradition of corpus, where the elevation and ritualistic aspects of objects contribute to my pieces. In making these pieces I have used many techniques, most notably casting, which make my objects a representation of what they are cast after, a repeated form.