Challenge 2018 Jewelry and Technology

 

Present is the only time when we can look at what has passed as we imagine what will come, when past and future virtually meet, allowing us to give shape to something new, combining what we learned and what we dream.

The word technology derives from the Greek techni (technique, art, craft) and logia (study, reason).

Nowadays it’s almost impossible to dissociate the term technology from the digital universe, but in the past the wheel has been the most advanced technology of its time and the writing, with which we rarely interact today without the use of a monitor, an innovative communication tool.

Jewelry itself has also evolved over time - if in the past the lost wax casting revolutionised mass production, today 3D printing or laser cut allows to develop pieces with shapes or materials unthinkable until now, allowing , through technique, to take art to another level.

Can we imagine what jewelry will look like a hundred years from now?

What today seems impossible to conceive will be banal one day, but even though time relativizes the astonishment inherent in all inventions, a characteristic continues to serve them as a base: innovation. And this constant human dissatisfaction, combined with a unlimited creativity, is also a reflection of its optimistic ability to see in the future a better world.

The awareness of the inevitability of the future brings with it fear and hope, new solutions and new problems, different visions of culture and society.

In an era in which we seem to escape from reality to embody characters in an increasingly virtual world, it’s important to question: are our lives really easier by the proliferation of tools and levels of knowledge increasingly accessible to any user? Can the machine ever replace Man? Technology as facilitator or repressor?

This is the reflection that we propose to the artists this year - let it be an inspiration in the approach to contemporary jewelry!

 

JURY

Ana Pina (Portugal) | representing Tincal lab

Graduated in architecture (FAUP, 2004), worked in this area for some years before discovering the world of jewelry. She’s been developing her personal brand since 2012, after a course at Engenho e Arte School. In 2015 she founded Tincal lab, a work, sale, exhibition and dynamization space dedicated to contemporary jewelry, in the center of Porto.

Áurea Praga (Portugal) | representing Jewelry

Illustrator and jewelry maker, combining these two fields in her work. Post-Graduated in Jewelry Design and Master in Design, both at ESAD Matosinhos. Graduated in Communication Design, by FBAUP. At the moment she is Coordinator of the Jewelry Department and teaches at ESAD Matosinhos since 2016.

Tauan Bernardo (Brazil) | representing Technology

Passionate for new technologies, designer and maker, has owned a product design agency for 8 years developing technology equipment. He was the director of Garagem FabLab in São Paulo and teacher at IED. He is currently based in Porto, where he works as a consultant, collaborates with FabLabs and teaches at Porto Design Factory.

 

43 jewelers from about 20 countries were selected.

On exhibition at Tincal lab from 10th of November to 31st of December of 2018.

  

AWARDS

Selection of the Jury: Cleopatra Cosulet (RO)

Selection of the Public (voting in person and online): Esteban Martínez - Eroski (MX) + Marcin Boguslaw (PL).