Jewellery and Corpus: Ädellab

The Bachelor’s Programme Jewellery and Corpus: Ädellab builds on a tradition that arose in the area of silversmithing and jewellery art, but which evolved into its own experimental field – one which uses this historical context as a fund rather than a framework.

The students who are now graduating have spent three years exploring and expanding the boundaries of this field. They all contribute with new and wholly personal interpretations of what jewellery and corpus can be and how these can be used contextually to explore pressing issues of our time.

Corpus is a word for a container that is primarily used to describe silver objects with an enclosing or hollow function, often related to a set table or ritual context. Vessels and containers are central objects in our daily lives that often hold so much more than functional and form-oriented aspects.

What happens when corpus is used as a method to design a place, create new rituals for introspection, or construct secret, electronic worlds? Can it give form to something that never existed? What meaning do traditional symbols take on when they encounter a dystopian news flow and are processed by artificial intelligence? What meanings do metal as a material and the vessel as a shape take on when they seek contact with Earth’s elements using video and performance?

Adornment is one of the oldest known art forms and still has a strong presence in our daily lives as a vehicle of meaning. Archaeologists have found examples of jewellery (such as seashells with holes in them) used as necklaces over 100,000 years ago.

What happens when the boundary between body and jewellery is blurred? When material from one type of body becomes part of another body? What new methods do we need in order to take care of the jewellery, objects and histories that we inherit? How can body extensions be used to reflect an ambivalence about one’s own identity or to prune the material of the body and challenge the cosmetic procedure industry?

The name Ädellab (Precious Lab) refers to a lab in which we develop the ability to refine, rather than to work with precious materials. Craftsmanship and the ability to transform and elevate both materials and contexts that can be seen as marginal are central in the education. In our students’ degree projects, the present is interpreted by hand, with a focus on details and in relation to the body. This is expressed through spatial installations that connect body, object and society, with a desire to create new interfaces that bring us closer to ourselves, one another and other life forms.

Sissi Westerberg
Senior Lecturer in Craft specialising in Jewellery and Corpus: Ädellab