Karin Seufert
Hello dear Connie,
well, I know what you mean when you are talking about the blog. It is also not what I’m used to do… but I like to have a look and to read what everyone is writing there and to see all the pictures. All together is very inspiring.
I also like to be in contact with you there. It is a great approach to correspond with someone you never have met before and to develop something out of this! And sorry when it takes a bit longer to answer.
We talked about colors and I realize that they fascinate me but within my work I nearly use any color. Or my pieces are black (most of them) or they are white. Very sometimes a color is smuggling into my jewellery but it is more an exception. I don’t know how it comes but at once I really would like to use color.
Last time I showed you my collection of caps from all over the world, I really like their diversity of color, structure, print and size. It is for me special to use all of them together, like you wrote about the special meaning of colors.
And winter… yes, it means mystery, silence but also dead, cleaning, renewing. To cover everything, to make it less sharp and to let it raise again, fresh and new born. Winter is a bit like to fade away the memory and to start with new thoughts. I can see what you mean in your ring.
Here in Berlin we have a lot of these firewalls. It is a wall of a house with nothing on, well, often with graffiti but no windows, balconies or things like these, only showing the outline of something. These walls reduce something to the most essential. Winter is a bit like this. I like it.
I will attach some firewalls.
I hope you are fine with your pregnancy!! How is it going?
Take care, Karin  
Hi Carolina, at the moment I’m getting last things done before leaving for Germany next week. I am going for a 2 month artist in residency there, but for my money job in Amsterdam I will be going back and forth almost every week. You guessed it! I will be crossing country borders regularly – Migrating! Of course this means being immersed again in a place that links directly to a large part of my heritage even if the geographical area is different. Interesting will be the effect this mentality has on me after I have taken years to move away from it.
This is in fact an ideal time to do this while blogging and thinking around a project that actually has to do with migration.
Christoph Zellweger
dear Jorge,
sorry for not being in contact earlier but I have been DE-PLACED again – means – working abroad, away, somewhere else, not exactly where my family and friends are and where my preferred place is right now. It has been very intense, also very good but exhausting. Travelling, though one meets so many people, can be a quite lonely business. It needs flexibility and the ability to focus regardless where you are. One has to rely on resting in oneself … something I seem to have learned over the past twenty odd years. …. which brings me to the subject of migration.
yes, I suppose if you weren’t born in a taxi and brought up on the road everybody is ‘from home’. ‘Home’ is a vague place, most times more of a memory of a place then a place. ‘Home’ is a concept, something universal. So is the idea of migration – migrating means nothing but moving on and this does not even mean changing place. Moving itself is probably the most natural thing ‘one does’ – regardless; it can be with purpose, by accident or chance or in blissful innocence. Migrating to me means also changing context, physically or in ones mind, it can be a forced migration as a way of survival, an escape or a deliberate active act of looking for new territories, meaning or purpose.
Actually I was born in a hospital in the very north of Germany, not a ‘home’. But I grow up at home, which meant ‘in a somehow save place’ which was lovely as it was warm and I had my own bed, which is not necessarily a criteria for home, however. Going to school was somehow like forced migration – nothing I did with great pleasure… When I left ‘home’ at the ago of 18 to do an apprenticeship it was like opening the first of many ‘worlds’ I wanted to explore – and at the age of 18 I had already travelled far – in my mind, but also by taking my bicycle to many countries and after walking far.
I suppose I am still checking out what’s around the corner, I am still thinking and dreaming myself into new places and migrate into ‘better’ or just ‘different’ places, always on the search for … what exactly? …
Maybe let us talk about that…
… by the way, I saw your piece in the Lingam-exhibiton in Stockholm – I attach an image of it…
Christoph
hi!
all these days and dates.
where was I?
where where you?
time.
time.
time.
time.
flows so very fast.
hug.
mia.
 
Sweden. Stockholm. My home. My roots. Dreaming about leaving, but always excited about returning.
Helena do you have a address where I can send you materials?
Dani Soter
Hello everyone! The reflections of the artists in this blog have inspired me a lot!
I made this photo thinking about everything I read about mobility, identity, roots, “one place to another” house, “about myself”, “not to be missed”…
Dani Soter
 Hello Leonor
Here I am, with my desire to cross the border and push beyond my limits. I’m tempted to move to the other side without losing my sight …
Ketli Tiitsar
Where are you?
I am looking forward to hear from you!
Ketli
Hi Ale!
Here is image of my last exhibition “Lollipops in the woods-Bites from everyday” in galleria Rantapaja in Lappeenranta, Finland.
First time I was collaborationg video int the presentation of my work. I am very exaited about this. Somehow activates the jewellery as it still is not on the body.
Hug.
Mia.
mudarse, (in spanish)
1 (de casa) to move
2 (de ropa) to change one’s clothes
(silhouette_silver brooches 2007)
Francisca Kweitel
the deer needed the warm of the finnish people to take colour-identity…
what do you need when you are out of home?
i’m like your deer.
shell effect.
i like this translation…spot: lugar, mancha, gota. (place, stain, drop)
North American artist and current director of the Fashion Design Faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago addresses social and political issues in his work by utilizing clothing-based forms as a response to being a black male in America. In the fashion of ethnographic costumes found in museums, Cave’s the Sound Suits function both as a piece of static sculpture for museum display and as a ceremonial garment for performance. They conceal the identity of the wearers, freeing him of race or skin color or gender. As an African-American male, Cave says he is faced with prejudice every time he steps onto the street; these pieces are made as disguise and protection against the prejudices he encounters daily. He uses discarded objects in a similar way to quilt making, which traditionally utilizes little bits of discarded clothing that are reassembled to form something practical and beautiful. Cave takes apparently worthless materials and transforms them into valuable objects of breathtaking beauty and spirit.
Nelli Tanner
My dear, the deer
White-tailed deer was given to Finnish forests in 1935 from Minnesota
It became ours
Our deer
Tamed
She is at the backyard of a house
and needs amulet-kind-of-objects to her horns to make a crown.
Audience is sewing the objects.
There are textiles from Finnish national dresses.
Thinking of identity
work and text by
Anna Rikkinen & Nelli Tanner
Tamed
2008
textiles, found objects, wood, thread, needles
300 x 150 cm x 4 cm
Alejandra Solar
Hi Mia,
In my country there are archaeological places everywhere.
Even tough ruins are evidence of destruction the place seemed calm.
Hug
Ale
Hello Susanne
I’m here again, I apologize for the late response but I was updating some of my work.
Immigration is such a complex subject to refer to because to define it, one has to touch so many aspects and connotations of the word, that many times the context of the word can also drive you to contradictions and confusions. Let me start the topic of immigration by talking about my own family and my circle of friends. As you can realize, my sisters and I are the result of migration and we continue to contribute to phenomenon.
I have already been living in Barcelona for a little over ten years. I came as a tourist but little by little my visit has taken more of a permanent status. While in Caracas I graduated as an architect and I expanded my knowledge my acquiring a graduate degree in Introduction to museum studies. After this, I arrived in Barcelona and I completed a masters on ephemeral architecture. Simultaneously to all this, I have been taking courses in jewelry and working on it parallel to my work as an architect.
Flughaven, 2005
Ho-Yeol Ryu, Korea
Nelli Tanner
travelling by walking or cycling or by bus
to forest
to the town of Imatra
taking photos from things that have something “white”
mushrooms or snow
stripes on the asphalt
smoke from the paper factory pipe
letters saying central station
Nelli Tanner
working is
collecting
combining
drawing
everything on one big table
always intrigued what is white
The ones who happen to be in London in the following weeks, do not miss the installations made by artists NS Harsha (India) and Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan) at Rvington Place. Harsha questions international politics and globalisation combining serious discussion with visual wit. 192 sewing machines are overlaid with calico painted flags signifying the countries that make up the United Nations. Simultaneously, Chen Chieh-jen presents a video that focuses on a group of textile workers, it is set within the context of manufacturing moving abroad in search of cheaper labor. Till Nov. 21st!
Beautiful and compelling…
Happy weekend to all!
Iniva presents exhibitions by NS Harsha and Chen Chieh-jen at Rivington Place from 18 Sept to 21 Nov 2009
 Video Installation
Francisca Kweitel
I need your words… “A moment of silence. A blank space our mind can fill in with thought.
Stories embodied in fragments of repetition.”
Breath life, city, faith, laughter, death, pleasure, cement, color, skepticism,
smells, materials, heat, celebrations, gases, consumerism, textures, dust, cold, sensations.
Believe (me), listen (me), feel (me), contact (me).
Each inhalation-exhalation-processing.
Roots that push from the inside.
Respira (breath). Installation/necklace. Chinstraps embroidery white on white, electrical installation with automatic dimmer (light turns on and off softly, slowly and steadily). 2009.
Lab was made during my artist in residency in the University of Applied Sciences-Trier, in the city of Idar-Oberstein in Germany.
It can be seen in the group exhibition On the other Hand until the 9th of October at the Gallery Reverso in Lisbon.
 Lab, LH 2008 Can we by means of knowledge and experience attain the forces of nature?
Can we encapsulate the sensations the material upholds? and extend ourself to all sides, into Nature, till the volatility of our sensations enable us to feel life as a form?
Lab, LH 2008
This blog has become very lively and is definitely collecting and connecting all sorts of very interesting aspects around the themes of migration, home, jewelry!
I wanted to share with you something that I discovered reading in the book THE CRAFTSMAN by Richard Sennett about goldsmiths and migration: In the medieval days an apprentice goldsmith was place-bound during his first stage of learning the basic techniques. But after that, once having proved himself by locally presenting his chef d’oeuvre he became a journeyman. This way by moving from city to city and responding to opportunities the traveling goldsmith became a convincing master craftsman who tended to be entrepreneurial with managerial talents, having been made strong by travel and mobility.
In fact I wasn’t aware of this aspect before at all and find it extremely interesting how so many contemporary jewelers – and this our group especially, are actually following an age long tradition!
I would really like to express an extra special thank you to José Manuel for your input and also to Galeria La REFACCIONARIA for their enthusiastic offer and reception of the project!
I find ethical dilemmas interesting as well since to me its the moral part the one that enters the gray area the most. Our shades are seen through our emotions, our emotions depends on our acts, which are determined by our moral (right vs wrong) I feel like when you enter a gray area your are like a soldier entering a war, a war of emotions, dilemmas, moral values, courage, pain, pleasures, and all these ingredients and many more are forming a soldier stronger than before. Or a SOULDIER as I like to think about it , which fights for your soul feeding it and letting it grow.
I think material definitely constitute a lot of value to a piece, speaking out to the public. As you mention the ethical problem with gold, I often think about how nature is been abused everyday. But we can do something about, let our jewelry speak. Recycling/found materials interest me a lot, they already have a history, a function, they belonged somewhere or to someone, so there is a story behind them, that tells about a culture. So is the perspective in which you see the material, an angle that can be framed by you, a shade of yourself in a new culture. The idea of using existing things to create something new, out of the ordinary fascinates me.
Regarding wearability, I believe the reason why people like to wear jewelry is to get some kind of benefit. Either is attention, admiration, honor , status, beauty, pleasure, distinction, interaction. The more benefits it gives the wearer the more they will like to wear it. How many benefits can a problem bring?
For example, taking my previous example of my souldier. What if we consider jewelry like medals, or con-decoration. Jewelry can be use as a victory, problems are solved and once you solve it you get recognition, giving self motivation, admiration and self- satisfaction. Now you could even help others.
Auli you have very interesting ideas, I’ll love to see some of your work do you have a website? Hope everything is good in that side of the world, greetings from here. You can check my work at www.mariajosefabrega.com.
Dear Jose thank you very much for your inspiring moderation. Due to the lack of time my interventions are brief and intermittent. I’ld like to write more on your review later on.
For now I am posting a fragment of my work. This in particular is about communication, possibly one of the most abstract forms of “collecting material”
 from the series 'Human Patterns, LH 2008 ‘Human Patterns’
A moment of silence. An intermittent but endless line of silence.
A blank space our mind can fill in with thought.
Stories embodied in fragments of repetition.
Memories looped in a waiting line.
How many seconds make a moment?
We might fold the line into a circle while time keeps slipping away.
Leonor Hipólito
2008
Hi Francisca thanks for addressing the nice photo to me. It reminds me the human footprint on the moon.
Recently I saw a very interesting documentary about the origin of life and how Earth and Moon depend on each other. Both wouldn’t exist without one another. They need to be in permanent interaction. It’s like communication in human beings. We need this correlation to live. Communication is for me the core of this project. The synonimous of gray area. Crisscross of thoughts, the blurring of frontiers, and a frame of reference. This blog is like a web in which 40 artists and more weave their thoughts. Like the caps of the bottles on your photo it is within the grouping of units that an image or idea gains pattern.
Mirla Fernandes
Christin Johansson
I confess that I did not know her work till yesterday. I thought of posting it because looks interesting considering our theme.
 Specially her work “Found in China”. It speaks for itself:
http://www.christin.dk/default.asp?id=45
Maria Constanza Ochoa
Hello Again!!
Oh my God! This is going to be hard….actually i am not use to this blogs…anyway…
Speaking about colors, you are right, the colors for me are very important, they are part of the life, the emotions, the instants…i believe that with the color we communicate a lot.
The necklace that you saw, is part of the cycle of life for me…are moments in life that we have full of feelings…sometimes red feelings…sometimes yellow…green but sometimes black and white.
As you say, the seasons have the color as special characteristic as well as the image of each one; and one of them that for me it is beautiful it is winter, although it is black and white…it is full of mystery…calm…silence.
In my country we dont have seasons…the weather depends of the city and how high it is…so although is nice…in Europe one of the things that i like the most it is the changing of seasons…it is like a renewal…it is motivation to do new things…and you can feel it.
Yes, the colors in every place are differents…but they always have with them one specific meaning.
I will attach to you one of the pieces that i did with the concept of “winter”.
Take care
Connie
I think that i have been using colors depends of my moment in life or also just with the seasons…
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