from 19 November till November 26
Rai, Amsterdam
The annual PAN will take place from Sunday 19 November to Sunday 26 November 2023. My work will be on display at Galerie Rob Koudijs,booth 37
On November 22, the PAN organizes a special jewelry and fashion day. Carin Reinders, director of CODA, will interview me and colleague Evert Nijland on the PAN stage.
What if you suddenly hear that you are ill…
What do you do afterwards, when you are totally ok again, what do you want to say and make, how to start?
Come back.
What do you do with all those half things that lie in drawers, stored in boxes: damaged, broken, kept, worthless and of value.
Jewelry that you no longer wear, made of gold or silver, worn links, broken clasps. There are memories…. A medallion of horn, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl, worn daily as a teenager in their heyday, the 1960s, just like the gold link bracelet.
A precious coral brooch you never wore, too much of a jewel, too fine.
Cufflinks, received as a keepsake.
But also a damaged Japanese lacquer box, an ebony violin key.
A milk tooth, no idea whose.
A jat that you don’t know how you got it.
Shells and pieces of coral collected by your mother in Indonesia in the late 1940s.
Tin figures.
The charm chain full of silver creatures, people, things, objects around your neck, each with their meaning. Ringing worn and cherished.
I’m putting them all back in the spotlight. I prefer to immortalize them forever.
I isolate or disassemble them, I combine them and give them a second life in a composition with pearls and rabbit droppings sprinkled in between. Together they grow into new, tiny stories in the form of a brooch. New life.
© Beppe Kessler
