GSA Silversmithing and Jewellery 2020/21

The Glasgow School of Art Silversmithing & Jewellery 2020/21

Reflections on 2020/21 4

#Ruffchallenge Royal Museums Greenwich / Queen’s House 10 #coronapunk!

National Museums Scotland 12 #Granulationchallenge State Collections of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich 16

#Fairytalechallenge

Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau 18 GLASGOW ZOOMask 24 Bus stop Jewellery: Conversations 6

The Glasgow School of Art Silversmithing & Jewellery 2020/21

Reflections on 2020/21

This academic year has been like no ­other in living memory. With the outbreak and continued spread of the Coronavirus, everything shifted into a digital space, with staff and students working from homes and student accommodation, ­scattered throughout the world but c­ onnected via the internet.

This publication is a reflection of this time, documenting the innovative and creative endeavours of students and staff determined to continue to explore and create the subject specialism through innovation, imagination and tenacity.

It has been a difficult year for all but it has also been a privilege to be part of their journey.

Anna Gordon

Head of Department and Programme Leader BA(Hons) silversmithing and Jewellery Design

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#Ruffchallenge Royal Museums Greenwich / Queen’s House

As the magnitude of the ­pandemic unfolded it became clear that it wasn’t going to be a matter of weeks or months, indeed a year later we are still in a world of precarity and adjustment. But having worked with Silvia Weidenbach and The Glasgow School of Art on the Splendour project in 2019 I knew that there would be an opportunity to view, as Arunduti Roy so eloquently set out, the Pandemic as a Portal “the rupture exists” and “we can choose to walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world”.

1 Bea Miotto Previously we developed a collabora2 Emily Mcgeary tive model with students and lecturers 3 Alejandro Ruiz learning through practice and exchange at multiple sites, GSA, Stirling Castle and the Queen’s House, unpacking the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I. 2020 was a year of much unpacking, grief, challenge and change but as creative practitioners we all start with what surrounds us and this is what the students did immediately from pizzas, hair and Amazon packaging. Making is thinking and it enables us to ­imagine.

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Matilda Pye

Curator, Educator and Researcher

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Vica Gabor Saipranathi Sreeram Sarah Wilmott Jenny Mcelroy Matilda Pye Claire Frith

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#coronapunk!

National Museums Scotland

Museums and their collections have been a continual source of inspiration for artists and makers over the years.

So, in these unprecedented times when we all, curator, tutor and student alike, were unable to physically visit the Museum, the online collection portal and research pages were a valuable resource. These digital sources introduced The Glasgow School of Art students to the National Museums Scotland jewellery collections, Illustrating how these artefacts could help 1 Hunterston Brooch, an early Christian brooch with panels inspire them to think creatively within of gold filigree in Celtic and their own designs, explorations and Anglo-­Saxon styles, from ­Ireland or the West of Scotexperimentations whilst working from land, c. 700 AD 2 Jenny McElroy home. Using these collections high3 Sarah Wilmott 4 Vhari Denovan McGovern lights that creativity can and will flourish even at the worst of times, as each student became a #coronapunk!

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Sarah Rothwell

Curator, Modern and Contemporary Design National Museums Scotland

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#Granulationchallenge State Collections of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich

“Antiquity can be a great source of inspiration,” says Dr Florian Knauß, ­Director of the State Collections of Antiquities and Glypothek. “Ludwig I, who started to build up his collections of ancient art two centuries ago ­understood this. Arts and crafts should take inspiration from old masterpieces to achieve new highs.”

“A particularly exciting outcome of our collaboration with The Glasgow School of Art has been creating a new museum experience,” adds curator Dr Astrid Fendt. “We have been able to keep the collections alive during the forced closure of the actual museum occasioned by the Coronavirus lock down.”

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1 Etruscan earring, gold, around 500 BC, State ­Collections of Antiquities Munich, photography: Renate Kuehling 2 Pura Ferreiro, gold granulate 3 Saipranathi Sreeram 4 Lori Baird 5 Sarah Wilmott

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“Not only did we enjoy international dialogue, but aroused curiosity about ancient culture and old techniques among young people by harnessing the power of digital channels. We were able to introduce the younger generation to our museum in a creative way”.

Dr Astrid Fendt

Curator, State Collections of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, Bavaria 2

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5 1, 2, 3 Jenny McElroy

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#Fairytalechallenge Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau

Fairytales play a special role in Hanau, city of the Brothers Grimm. The German Goldsmiths’ House Hanau is home to the dwarves’ hats from the fairytale Snow White, made out of silver and seed pearls by Pforzheim-based artist Sam Tho Duong. We were delighted to hear that students from the Glasgow School of Art drew inspiration from Hanau’s fairytale world for the Fairytale Challenge. The simplest materials were transformed into imaginative jewelry creations, referencing a diverse array of fairytales such as The Seven Ravens, Hansel and Gretel, or an encounter between Rapunzel and The Musicians of Bremen. In these difficult times of Coronavirus-induced lockdown, this virtual presentation was a genuine enrichment for our museum and demonstrates how exciting the collaboration between contemporary jewelry creation and the tradition of classic fairytales can be.

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Dr Christianne Weber-Stöber

Head, Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau

1 1 Rachel Hetherington 2 Kristina Merchant 3 Megan Vischer

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GLASGOW ZOOMask

The covid pandemic imposed many restrictions upon us. We had to keep our hands at bay and wear a mask over our mouth and nose. As an artist, I considered these restrictions as an opportunity to explore ideas of human behavior and how these limitations could be subverted; that they might, in fact, provide freedom to imagine ­different actions. Therefore, I commissioned students in Silversmithing & Jewellery at The Glasgow School of Art to create face masks as alternatives to the standard medical types.

After an initial introduction on Zoom we followed this up with a remote drawing exercise. The students were given an assignment to imagine what kind of animal they most relate to and to make a mouth mask in response to this. They could use any material and scale the mask to any size. However, as part of the assessment, everyone had to wear their own masks. The result was a Glasgow ZOO, with many different animals, great expressions, free from convention, a reflection on human-animal interaction. Each ‘animal’ had to conduct an interview with me, as the interviewer, and I enjoyed asking all the beasts to tell me something about their lives in their animal personas during the presentation. It was big fun, creative, and a brief respite to the general feeling of isolation.

Ruudt Peters

Artist

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Ruudt Peters Caius Bearder Niamh Ireland Claire Frith Tamzin Scott

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Bus stop Jewellery: Conversations www.jewelleryconversations.com

Over the last few years society has become increasingly fragmented; we have been corrosively divided by Brexit and then separated again by Covid-19.

Social media has kept us in these separate bubbles, where we meet only people who subscribe to our world view offering us an echo chamber of shared algorithms. We urgently need to find ways to talk to each other without negative stereotypes or assumptions.

Surprisingly contemporary, especially non-precious jewellery, can provide the means and space to do that. Waiting at the bus stop, queuing at the supermarket or in a shop, people have always commented on my jewellery; it has led to many unexpected, fascinating, personal and moving conversations across all sorts of boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity and region.

It is a stimulus for social interaction.

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Bus stop Jewellery: Conversations aims to encourage people to communicate with each other, share ideas and stories and engage in discussion over a wide range of important social and environmental themes. It seeks to break down barriers, both perceived and real, and find points of contact in an increasingly fragmented world.

Corinne Julius

Curator and journalist

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Stefan Mocanu Sarah Wilmott Alejandro Ruiz Karen Hannigan

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1 Siri Hansen 2 Niamh Wright 3 Vica Gabor

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