Amberif Design Award
Exhibition presenting pieces selected to the 15th International Competition for Jewellery Project with Amber organized by the International Fair of Amber, Jewellery and Gemstones Amberif. Its aim is promotion of creative thinking and innovative solutions in amber jewellery designing. This year’s topic was: Story Telling.
When we take in the world around us, we don’t look out the window anymore. We look through Windows OS. It would be cliché to say that the skill and need to converse and to have direct interpersonal contact is fading. Marketing specialists also average our individual aspirations out to the inclinations of a statistical “target” in every conceivable area of design and contemporary jewellery art has suffered in the process. An object with symbolic and sentimental implications has lost its private aspect of a personal amulet and is increasingly becoming a seasonal, disposable product more akin to haberdashery than jewellery. In this context, the Charming Charms phenomenon serves as the clearest illustration of this superficial process, just as the fact that Lady Gaga has got twenty million fans on Facebook.
This, of course, does not mean that contemporary jewellery designers have nothing important to say anymore, but it certainly signifies the need to redefine the language of symbols we have been using. STORY TELLING, the topic of this year’s competition, is an invitation to enter into a dialogue, to present one’s own point of view, a subjective commentary, a personal (hi)story worth telling.
Amber: a material which is both a tangible and symbolic medium of information from millions of years ago can be an inspiring reason for the challenge.
Sławomir Fijałkowski
International jury composed of: Prof. Daniel Kruger (Chairman of the Jury Board, University of Art and Patterns, Halle, Germany), Beate Klockmann (jewellery designer, Amsterdam, Holland), Zbigniew Kraska (art critic, curator of exhibitions, director of the Gallery of Art in Legnica, Poland), Fabrizio Tridenti (jewellery designer, Vasto, Italy), evaluated 101 works submitted for competition by 79 authors from 12 countries: Great Britain, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, South Korea, Slovenia, Sweden, Taiwan, Italy, the United States and Poland.
Awarded:
Gisbert Stach (Germany) – Award of the Mayor of the City of Gdańsk PLN 10.000 founded by Paweł Adamowicz
The awarded piece has a form of Polish map. Fragments embedded in the bitumen refer to the amber found in the ground. Traces of modern elements joint like a sign of human passing. They are witnessed of the overlapping layers of history.
Piotr Tołkin (Poland) – The Amber Prize sponsored by the International Amber Association - 2 kg of amber
This practical, well-designed object, which also perfectly corresponds to the competition task. Storytelling also means listening to them. In a word – without listener there would not be history.
Anna Szewczyk-Ciesielska (Poland) – The Silver Prize sponsored by S&A - 2kg of silver
Jury was convinced by the wealth of meanings of this piece. It tells story about exploration and collection of amber. On our way we are constantly distracted by the other items which were lost. Amber is an ancient product of nature and time. Objects are useful or useless relics of human journey through time.
