KATHARINA DETTAR
KATHARINA DETTAR
COMPARATIVE STUDIES
Jewellery, tableware, furniture and silk clothes are present in our daily life, contrary to the unseen raw material we need in order to produce them.
Gold has been man’s most sought-after quest for hundreds of years and the price of gold continues to rise. But gold deposits are ever thinner, and this precious metal is being extracted from the earth at enormous environmental and human cost, often in some of the poorest corners of the world.
A gold ring may weigh about 2,1 grams. Based on the data and information provided by the Dolaucothi Gold Mines in Wales the average quantity of ore to get 2,1 grams of 24ct gold is of about 140 kilograms of quartzite. This quartzite has an high amount of iron in it where the gold dust finds itself located. In order to get the ore you need to extract 1400 kilograms of shale rock, therefore being the final numbers 1540 kilograms of spoil for a 2,1 gram ring of gold.
To obtain a small amount of gold, tons of rock are dug up and sprinkled with diluted cyanide, which separates the gold from the rock. Some of the largest mines move up to half million tons of earth a day, leaching the poison into rivers and lakes.
2,1 grams is a visual metaphor that illustrates the huge disparity between a gold ring and the amount of material needed to create it.
Katharina Dettar - born 1988 in Fürth (Germany), until 2010 lived in Catalonia. She studied Artistic Jewellery at Massana School in Barcelona, Spain, her final project was tutored by Professor Ramón Puig Cuyás and by Professor Eija Mustonen during her exchange semester at Rantapaja, in Jewellery and Stonework Design in Lappeenranta, Finland. She received her Bachelor of Arts at the Fachhochschule Idar-Oberstein (University of Trier, Germany) in 2013. In 2016 she received her MA degree in Jewellery & Metal at School of Fine Art. member of the Plateaus Jewellery Project group. Her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe, North America and Asia.
Wystawy / Exhibitions:
Where is the gold?, Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2015; Tall Tales: Making Social Networks, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 2015; Work–in–Progress Show, Royal College of London, London, UK, 2015; Dettar / Izquierdo: prolongation of a circle, Galeria Amaranto, Barcelona, Spain, 2015; Schmuck 2015, IHM Messe, Munich, Germany, 2015; MineralART, Staatliche Antikensammlung Museum, Munich, Germany, 2014; Art Fair Tokyo, Galerie O-Jewel, Tokyo, Japan, 2013; Mariposa, Museum of Natural Sciences, Granollers, Spain, 2013; European Prize for Applied Arts, World Craft Council, Mons, Belgium, 2012; ABUSHAN: Design Dialogues in Jewellery, World Craft Council, New Delhi, India, 2011; Memento mori, Sala La Capella, Barcelona, Spain, 2009
Nagrody / Awards:
1st Prize, Talente Prize, 2010; 1st Prize, Förderpreis für das Kunsthandwerk Rheinland-Pfalz, 2010; honorable mention, Bayerischer Kunstgewerbe-Verein, 2014
