In Dialog with Josefine Spjeldnæs

In a shift away from the traditional gallery mannequin, Salotto SPJ is redefining how we expertise modern jewellery. Impressed by the intimacy and mind of historic salons, this curated area in Milan, Italy, brings collectively artists, collectors, and curious minds in a setting that feels much less like a showroom and extra like a dialog. 

Salotto SPJ’s upcoming salon exhibition will function the London-based South Korean jewellery artist Yeena Yoon. It opens on Might 21, 2025. Earlier than turning into a jeweler, Yoon skilled and practiced as an architect at Zaha Hadid Architects and different well-known studios. This basis continues to form her inventive method, wherein type, construction, and spatial considering stay central. Yoon’s transition into metalwork was pushed by a deep engagement with materials and course of, and she or he refined her expertise via coaching with grasp goldsmiths and lapidaries.

On this interview, we converse with Josefine Spjeldnæs, Salotto SPJ’s founder and proprietor, to uncover the story behind the mission, its mission to raise jewellery as a type of inventive expression, and the way it’s fostering a brand new form of cultural dialogue.

Melis Agabigum: It’s a pleasure to attach with you about this new and thrilling enterprise. Might you share the mission behind Salotto SPJ?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: Salotto SPJ is an exhibition mission devoted to modern jewellery and wearable artwork. Its mission is to discover jewellery as a critical inventive follow in its personal proper via dialogue, reflection, and materials investigation. By means of intimate, salon-style solo exhibits in a non-public house, the mission invitations deeper engagement with every maker’s course of and intent.

The mission’s mission assertion reads: “Salotto SPJ seeks to investigate into the aim and which means communicated by and thru jewelry, in the end remodeling these artworks—when worn—into testimonials, turning into important expressions of our cultural legacy and private historical past.”

Since your January 2025 debut, Salotto SPJ has hosted a considerate sequence of solo exhibitions. They’re proven in a non-public house. This intimate presentation fashion feels extremely harking back to conventional artwork salons. What impressed this curatorial method?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: That reference is intentional. I’ve at all times been drawn to the thought of the salon, not simply as a format however as an area for shared consideration and cultural alternate. The notion of a democratic salon particularly resonates: a setting the place dialogue, reflection, and aesthetic expertise turn out to be a part of a collective technique of meaning-making. Every exhibition is a centered encounter: quiet, exact, and proof against distraction—and open to all who’re .

In talking with gallerists and jewelers, I’m at all times intrigued by what attracts every particular person to this area. What initially led you to jewellery and curatorial work?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: I’ve a background in artwork historical past and modern artwork museums and galleries, so curatorial considering has lengthy been a part of how I interact with objects and concepts. My relationship to supplies started a lot earlier. As a baby, I spent plenty of time with my grandfather, who was a geologist. He took me on many area journeys to mines, the place I’d accumulate stones and metallic fragments. I used to be at all times holding them, finding out them. I keep in mind being fascinated by their weight and story. That tactile connection stayed with me. Jewellery turned a method to convey these worlds collectively: materials, reminiscence, and which means, all on an intimate scale.

Your profession has spanned a number of disciplines earlier than the launch of Salotto SPJ. Are you able to share some key experiences that formed your path? Was there a defining second once you knew it was time to open your personal gallery?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: I’ve labored throughout numerous fields, from modern artwork to fantastic jewellery and gems. I’ve at all times been drawn to the perimeters the place disciplines blur. Opening Salotto SPJ wasn’t a strategic determination—it felt essential to create an area with the principle focus of beginning new open conversations in regards to the function and potential of jewellery as an impartial artwork type.

Talking of blurring disciplines, I’d love to listen to extra in regards to the architectural design of Salotto SPJ. How did the imaginative and prescient for the area come collectively?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: Salotto SPJ is, at first, my residence. When there’s an exhibition, I gently rearrange the area to make room for just a few customized show circumstances that have been designed particularly for the mission, however in any other case every little thing stays as it’s. It’s vital to me that the setting not really feel like a white dice or a showroom. It is a salon, and I invite individuals in not solely to expertise the work however to come across one another in an area that feels open, protected, and emotionally attuned. The home context turns into a part of the environment.

That’s one thing else I’ve been interested by. Your capability to create environment in even a single social media submit has been extremely alluring. I’ve actually loved exploring your Instagram! It has such an intimate, elegant, and barely enigmatic tone. How do you see social media contributing to the identification and enterprise mannequin of a up to date gallery?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: Thanks a lot, which means loads! I consider Instagram much less as a platform and extra like a small window. I attempt to maintain the tone poetic relatively than promotional. The aim isn’t to clarify the work or promote it, however to create a sure environment and to ask individuals in.

Your Yenna Yoon exhibition opens Might 21, 2025. She’s a former architect at Zaha Hadid turned jeweler. What facets of her work resonated with the gallery? In what methods does her method to modern jewellery align with—or push towards—your curatorial perspective?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: Yeena Yoon’s work feels deeply aligned with the values of the mission. Her items are methodical, materially pushed, and conceptually restrained in a means I discover highly effective. You possibly can really feel her architectural coaching not simply within the kinds however in how she constructs transformation, modularity, and hidden constructions. Her follow quietly pushes towards expectations. She additionally studied below each Giovanni Corvaja and Charlotte De Syllas, two masters whose affect is profound and whose participation within the Salotto SPJ mission offers this presentation a fantastic feeling of continuity.

What has been probably the most rewarding or stunning a part of this journey for you to date?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: Probably the most rewarding factor has been the delicate and curious consideration individuals convey into the area. When somebody pauses, asks a query, or comes again for a second go to. I’ve additionally been shocked by what number of artists and guests have longed for a context like this. It reinforces the concept intimacy and depth aren’t limiting. Quite the opposite, they’re needed.

Trying forward, what are your hopes for the way forward for Salotto SPJ? How do you envision your function in shaping the dialog round modern jewellery?

Josefine Spjeldnæs: I hope Salotto SPJ can contribute to a extra reflective and layered dialog round jewellery and inventive making that doesn’t separate craft from idea or magnificence from thought. I’d like to increase this system into publishing, invite visitor curators, and create moments of dialogue throughout disciplines. My function isn’t to clarify the work, however to create a setting the place materials speaks and the complexity and significance of jewellery as an artwork type is allowed to unfold.

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