A Sense of Jewellery

About

Opening at the Goldsmiths’ Centre in Clerkenwell, London, as part of the London Design Festival, the exhibition sets out to rediscover British jewellery design and celebrates the quality of design thinking and material innovation which has emerged from independent studios in this period.

Jewels are one of the most intimate and oldest forms of human expression, seen in the extraordinary objects held in museums and personal collections worldwide. This free exhibition will unite pieces from the V&A, private patrons, artist collections and The Goldsmiths’ Company’s own collection to demonstrate how artists and designers continue to be drawn to this field of activity, inspired by its human and material histories.

This unique combination of British works has been put together by invited guest curators: Amanda Game, a leading UK independent curator and producer in the field of jewellery and silversmithing and Liveryman of The Goldsmiths’ Company and Professor Dorothy Hogg MBE, influential designer and former Head of the School of Jewellery in Edinburgh. Major works by established artists such as Wendy Ramshaw CBE and Gerda Flockinger CBE will be shown alongside works by emerging makers from across the UK, such as Andrew Lamb and Zoe Arnold.

A Sense of Jewellery, as part of the London Design Festival, will also feature contemporary female artists and designers exploring themes of globalisation, identity and nanotechnology through jewellery design. Another highlight is a specially commissioned exhibition design from architecture graduate, Michael Zieja of Brocklehurst Architects and a series of special events and film screenings in association with the Crafts Council looking at jewellery: its design, making and wearing from many perspectives.

Over the past forty years, the UK has fostered a high level of creative practice, with international connections, through a unique combination of vibrant art colleges, focused patronage and active museum collecting and exhibitions. The Goldsmith Company, one of the London’s oldest Livery Companies, has supported jewellery making in Britain of which the Goldsmiths’ Centre, a charity for the professional training of goldsmiths, is a new chapter. These are the contexts for A Sense of Jewellery.

Part of the London Design Festival (19 – 27 September 2015).