On Friday, the exhibition Mattering Elsew(here) opens at the Gemstone and Jewellery Campus. On display are works by Bachelor’s students who, over the past few days, have worked with the South African artist, academic and curator Farieda Nazier to develop and deliver a workshop programme exploring issues of identity, materiality and global connections.
The workshop focused on exploring categories such as ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘us’ and ‘them’ – systems of thought and classification that are historically closely linked to colonial power structures and continue to influence how global differences are perceived and categorised to this day. The starting point was the question of how jewellery and materials, as an artistic practice, can respond to these historical dividing lines: What relationships can be made visible through materials? What stories do they carry within them? And how can they express connection rather than separation?
The focus was particularly on the relationships between makers and the object, between makers and the process of making, and between the wearer and the piece of jewellery itself – viewed through the lenses of materiality, performativity and context. Jewellery is not understood merely as an object, but as part of a network of relationships: as something that can be worn, experienced and reinterpreted time and again through interaction with people and the environment. The aim of the workshop was not to formulate definitive answers, but to create a space for critical reflection, dialogue and artistic experimentation.
Under the title Mattering Elsew(here), the students each created two pieces of jewellery. One piece explored their own position and identity, whilst the second was created for a fellow student from another continent. The result was a series of works that were both personal and dialogical, addressing difference whilst opening up possibilities for exchange, closeness and connection.
The workshop was led by Farieda Nazier, an artist, researcher and curator from South Africa, whose work focuses intensively on Afro-feminist perspectives and the impact of colonial and apartheid history on the present day. Nazier completed her PhD in 2025 with a thesis on transformative art practice and its contribution to post-apartheid museum discourses. Her practice combines research, teaching, curatorial work and artistic production at an international level.
Together with Chequita Nahar, Nazier led the organisation of this year’s Jewellery Syxmposium Haxthäuser Hof, entitled The Fetish of Elsewhere. The symposium explored questions of origin, perception and projections of the ‘Other’ – themes that Nazier has now continued and explored in greater depth with students in the Bachelor’s workshop at the Gemstone and Jewellery Campus. The exhibition Mattering Elsew(here) brings this collaborative artistic research to life. It presents jewellery as a medium of exchange – as something that is not merely worn, but can forge relationships, shift perspectives and give rise to new connections.
The exhibition opening will take place on Friday at 3 pm in the corridor next to the library. Visitors are warmly invited.
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