Elena Karpilova: To Climb up a Ladder

The educator, artist, and author from Belarus/Portugal displays on how you can see the modern jewellery scene in a broader context—and why all of us want, occasionally, to climb up a ladder in order that the “furrows” within the floor, when considered from above, flip into significant shapes.

Karpilova gave this presentation as a part of the 2026 “AJF Speaker Sequence: Jewellery that Makes You Assume,” which featured 16 talks over 5 days. Many of the sequence passed off within the sales space AJF shared with Arnoldsche Artwork Publishers on the commerce honest.

To Climb Up a Ladder
Final yr, Liesbeth den and Saskia van Es organized a workshop for writers. I wasn’t in a position to attend in particular person due to doc and legalization points. I’ve been residing in Portugal since 2022.
I’m initially from Belarus. As a substitute, I proposed collaborating remotely by writing an essay.
One of many questions mentioned in the course of the workshop was:
“Share considerations and hopes, talk about what the sector wants for a mature vital writing tradition to
emerge.”
Since I couldn’t attend in particular person, I provided to jot down an essay on the subject as a substitute. The title was “To
Climb up a Ladder,” and each the title and its core concept grew to become the muse of my speak at present.
I maintain asking myself:
How can modern jewellery turn out to be as recognizable, as broadly mentioned, and as deeply
built-in into totally different spheres of life as different artwork varieties?
How can it enter the broader cultural discourse? In any other case, it seems remoted — even barely
peculiar. Susan Cummins as soon as referred to as it subculture which isn’t essentially a foul factor, in actual fact it
might even be extra fascinating — however how can we make this subculture extra broadly identified? I
think about jewelers themselves wouldn’t thoughts, contemplating they finally must promote their work to
somebody.
A pal of mine as soon as stated, after I enthusiastically described the sector to him:
“Oh, I get it. You’re like a group of fishermen obsessed together with your craft — with your individual
unusual stars who boast the most important catch, laughing at inside jokes, spending a lot of cash on
gear…”
And sure… in some methods, it does seem like that.
The second, and truly main, area during which I work is architectural concept and training. Since
2016 I co-run a venture referred to as Architectural Pondering Faculty for Kids.
That’s why, in my speak, I selected structure as a degree of comparability. Structure is all over the place — we encounter it continuously, whether or not we wish to or not. Jewellery, however, is just not.
I run this venture along with my associate. After we introduce ourselves at conferences and he says he’s an architect, I see respectful, admiring seems. When it’s my flip and I say I’m an artwork critic, curator, the seems turn out to be extra impartial. And once I point out modern artwork jewellery, the seems generally shift into one thing near pity.
Rosi Braidotti, a serious determine in posthumanist concept, speaks about “the human” as a assemble of
energy and visibility. For me, this concept can simply be translated into structure.
Architects not often endure from inferiority complexes — they place themselves virtually as gods,
creators of area. With out them, we couldn’t dwell the best way we do.
Sure, we spend greater than 80 p.c of our lives inside structure.
Sure, structure integrates a number of sciences and humanities.
Sure, it’s deeply entangled even with politics.
And no piece of jewellery is prone to rework a metropolis’s economic system in two years the best way Frank Gehry
did with the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
However nonetheless — the place does this public notion come from? Why does modern artwork jewellery
occupy such a marginal place?
On the similar time, I see profound structural similarities between structure and jewellery. To not
point out that there are jewelers who initially got here from structure — for instance, final yr’s
Herbert Hofmann Prize winner, Empar Juanes Sanchis. I need modern artwork jewellery to be as
recognisable and invaluable as structure!
However who’s chargeable for serving to jewellery transfer past its personal “Petri dish” — an area the place life
and processes unfold, but the dish stays contained in the laboratory, hidden from broader view?
Critics?
In the course of the workshop organized by Liesbeth and Saskia, a number of points in writing had been recognized.
In my very own work, I attempt to construct bridges — and even dissolve boundaries — between jewellery and different artwork varieties. For instance, in 2024 I wrote a bit introducing a time period borrowed from cinema:
mockumentary. When actuality is reproduced with extraordinary precision, but stays artificially
constructed — it isn’t a reality, however a fabricated reality.
I additionally take pleasure in translating postulates about reflecting on the place of people in society into the sector of latest jewellery.
In doing so, I emphasize that jewellery is equally contextual, expansive, materially engaged, and
culturally influential.
Jewelers themselves?
Maybe the important thing lies in jewelers making a aware effort to create interdisciplinary tasks.
Considered one of my favourite examples — and one among my favourite jewellery “tales” — is the venture initiated and arranged by Caroline Broadhead, with the participation of a bunch of CSM employees and college students working in equal partnership with the Coram Basis.
The jewelers needed to create works responding to the Foundling Museum’s historical past of deserted kids.
Lin Cheung was so deeply moved by the topic that she determined to not make a bit of jewellery in any respect. As a substitute, she targeted on a small pin which holds a textile token onto every web page of the billets that documented the admission of each baby. The pin is witness to a small however poignant intervention carried out by the departing mom as she pins a token to her child’s clothes adopted by the Foundling Hospital diligently attaching every textile token onto a billet web page as a way of figuring out the kid with its mom.
So Cheung’s response on this venture was not jewellery however tattoo in actual form and scale of this pin, which she made near her coronary heart.
In that gesture, jewellery moved past objecthood. It grew to become a hint, historical past, reminiscence, wound.
Curators?
Maybe curators are chargeable for organizing interdisciplinary exhibitions and tasks —
contexts during which jewellery strikes past its purely materials body.
Or maybe exhibitions aren’t sufficient to flee our “fishing group.” What is definitely holding us again from shifting ahead? Maybe we have to tackle the interior points inside the area first.
For instance, I run a venture which is going on proper now, the place jewelers can come and seek the advice of
with “medical doctors.” They ship of their signs and complaints upfront, and through one-on-one
periods we discover attainable diagnoses and conceptual remedies. It’s each playful and critical — a approach of increasing discourse past object manufacturing. No, I’m not suggesting that we’re going to “remedy” anybody, and I don’t wish to place anybody above anybody else. I consider that on this case, first support means dialog and gathering signs — dialogue itself can result in surprising and significant insights.
Just a few years in the past, I wrote an article titled Jewellery Pondering, during which I argued {that a} single jewellery
piece can function an entry level into a number of disciplines.
For instance, I mentioned a crown by Mairi Millar that addresses the imposed Catholicism
introduced by colonizers to Trinidad and Tobago, drawing a parallel with medication — which doesn’t
at all times heal, even when prescribed with authority.
In that very same textual content, I proposed a metaphor: a jewellery exhibition is sort of a library stuffed with textbooks
from totally different disciplines. By way of every bit, one can research politics, economics, geography,
arithmetic, anthropology.
Typically I incorporate classes on modern jewellery in my academic venture, Architectural
Pondering Faculty, and my colleagues say that my dream most likely can be to introduce jewelry-
making into college curricula. Really, no, however I’d like to introduce jewellery objects as academic
instruments.
By way of a single piece, college students might be taught every thing from mathematical calculations (scale,
proportion, materials weight) to geography (the place supplies are mined), to historical past and commerce routes.
Kids reply to jewellery with fast fascination — particularly once they be taught the costs. At that time, I guarantee you, arithmetic out of the blue turns into very fascinating.
Galleries?
Or maybe the duty lies with galleries.
Why don’t we see jewellery represented at main worldwide occasions such because the Venice Biennale,
Manifesta, or documenta?
When jewellery is positioned inside a broader cultural framework — notably one the place potential
collectors and culturally engaged audiences are already current — it shifts into a wholly totally different dimension.
Not essentially larger.
Simply totally different.
Ornamentum gallery, for instance, take part in the principle program of Design Miami since 2008!
What can we see right here? Huge stones…a area of stones in chaos with an countless view.
There may be an occasion — the Venice Structure Biennale — which appoints a brand new curator and theme
every version.
In 2016, its poster featured a middle-aged lady standing on a ladder in the midst of a desert,
gazing into the space. Many individuals, unaware of the context, merely smiled or noticed it as an
intriguing surrealist picture.
In truth, the lady was Maria Reiche, one of many first archaeologists to check the Nazca geoglyphs in Peru. From floor stage, these huge 2,000-year-old figures seem as nothing greater than scattered stones. Maria couldn’t afford to lease a aircraft for aerial analysis, so she used a conveyable aluminum ladder.
Within the non-fiction guide The Thriller of the Nasca Traces Tony Morrison, describes the method:
“She walked about 25 kilometers a day in sandals in search of solutions to the geoglyphs she discovered,
sweeping, measuring, analyzing, and mapping almost a thousand traces that fashioned these mysterious figures — till Parkinson’s illness weakened her, and he or she might not return to the desert that had already left her blind.”
Reiche started learning the traces in 1930, systematically mapping and cataloging tons of of traces
and geoglyphs. In 1994, she succeeded in having them formally protected and acknowledged as a
UNESCO World Heritage Website.
Typically, with the intention to actually perceive jewellery, I really feel that all of us — critics, jewelers, galleries —
should take our personal ladder.
We should rise barely above the bodily area of the exhibition and look outward — into the
broader social, political, and cultural panorama.
Solely this manner can we see the larger image after which perceive what our sphere means within the
general context.