‘Connecting Values: Exploring co-creation through making’ Exhibition

In 2019 K2 Academy was invited to participate in Camden Alive Project, a programme of arts and cultural events that celebrates the people of Camden and captures the sights, sounds and spirit of the borough. K2’s founders and directors, Katrin Spranger and Kelvin Birk, were commissioned to develop their own art projects with Camden residents and K2 students based on their stories and chosen theme of ‘value’. This cultural exchange culminated in creating an electroformed fountain and crushed-stone neckpiece which were first exhibited at the British Museum in March 2020. We had a wonderful time working with all the participants who brought a great deal of creativity and dedication into the project!

We are pleased to announce that this project will be showcased again at the Swiss Cottage Gallery in the exhibition ‘Connecting Values: Exploring co-creation through making’, which will be open to the public 17 May - 4 June 2021.

The exhibition displays artworks that have at their heart a collaborative process. Each communicates a journey in jewellery making, expressing something to its intended wearer, whether personal, political or conceptual; a message chosen to be displayed, used, worn, celebrated and valued. The participants learned about the jewellery making and sculptural techniques used by Katrin and Kelvin in their work during a series of workshops between 2019 and 2020. Each created an individual piece of jewellery and then co-created a larger piece led by either Katrin or Kelvin.

The Aquatopia Water Fountain, Katrin Spranger with Camden residents and K2 Students

The fountain, taking form as a large drinking vessel held in a large steel framework and reminiscent of an old milking parlour jar, was developed as a continuation of Spranger’s dialogue with the scarcity of clean water. The fountain brings this issue into local focus, referencing provision of clean water in the public realm of the borough. Its co-creative nature also serves to highlight the dialogue between personal experience with our basic needs for survival and larger environmental issues. The participants worked with the artist to learn about her practice and the electroforming technique. Each of them brought objects that embody personal value to them, which they electroformed during the workshops. Many of the objects were organic materials, such as dried plants. They cling to the frame, combined with skulls and bones, as reminders of our shared dependency on water. A specially commissioned film showing the water fountain in action will accompany the display.

If you’re interested in the electroforming technique and would like to explore its possibilities first handed, join our Electroforming Workshop run by Katrin Spranger at K2 Academy.

Tell Tale, Kelvin Birk with Camden residents and K2 Students

Tell Tale created by Kelvin J Birk and Camden Alive participants, is a large and talismanic-like neckpiece that combines individual objects encrusted with smashed gems held within and linked by a worked silver structure reminiscent of a daisy chain. The neckpiece brings together stories, each enclosed in their jewelled cases. The stories ask us about what we value most, how society perceives value and how we deal with the fear or loss of losing things that we value. It highlights how our individual experiences can be brought together, at once distinct but also shared.

Kelvin worked with the participants to encrust their value-objects with crushed gemstones. This process both preserved and destroyed their value. Each was then mounted on the neckpiece, which was made in the style of Kelvin’s work. He lets the materials speak and doesn’t clean off marks from filing or working with it, a method that disregards what is traditionally considered precious.

K2 students were invited to make their own Individual jewellery pieces in style of Kelvin’s work, which are exhibited alongside the Tell Tale neckpiece. Below you can learn about the stories behind some of the objets.

Faith, Karolina Brodnicka

First Refuge, Nina Saeidi

Faith ring by Karolina Brodnicka

I have always been interested in religion, its place in society, its role in forming communities and the way it influences human relationships. Having grown up in a Catholic household in Poland, I experienced first handed the impact of Christianity on peoples' lives and on society, which bases its moral system on the Bible. Therefore for this project I chose a cross, a symbol that was ever-present in my childhood and to me represents a far-from-perfect institution that holds more power than it should.

First refuge ring by Nina Saeidi

The object I have contributed is the key that my aunt received for her first flat in the UK after she was granted asylum in the 1990s. She fled from Iran after years of persecution and imprisonment by the Islamic regime and made a new home in London, where she laid down roots with my family and I. The heart keychain that has been set into a ring is from Iran and uses a traditional hand-constructed inlay. The key and heart keychain symbolises the meeting of East and West in the multicultural community of north London where we live.

Fragrance necklace by Maureen Klingels-Pruss

My piece is in memory of a very dear and life-long friend who sadly died after a very long illness in 2014. The empty bottle contained a perfume we both loved and frequently gave each other as a gift. The colours of the stones chosen, blues and colourless to represent her favourite colours, blue and white, She always filled her garden with blue and white flowers. Colour and smell - a sense of memory... blue and white together with the scent of Guerlain's Mitsouko will always be tinged with a strong sense of the bond of friendship and the sadness of loss.

Bottoni necklace by Sandra Rattenni-Morriss

I spent many hours of my childhood playing with boxes of colourful buttons and lining fabrics while watching the pedal of my parents’ sewing machine go up and down. My parents emigrated to Paris from Italy. They worked long hours as tailors in the same room where my brother and I slept. I still find the sight of coloured buttons very appealing.

Images by Emily Morgan, Marc Buchanan.

Video by Marc Buchanan.

Opening times

Monday to Thursday: 10am-8pm 

Friday and Saturday: 10am-5pm 

Sunday: Closed

Address

Swiss Cottage Gallery

88 Avenue Road, London, NW3 3HA

(inside Swiss Cottage Library)