In Dialog with the Jurors of the 2026 Younger Artist Award, Supported by Karen and Michael Rotenberg
- The 2026 AJF Younger Artist Award advances the careers of rising jewellery artists aged 35 and beneath
- The winner receives a prize of US$7,500. Every of 4 finalists will get US$1,000
- Work by the winner and finalists will probably be proven in Platina’s sales space throughout Schmuck, in March 2026
- There’s a journey allowance of US$1,000 every for the winner and the finalists who journey to Munich to obtain their award
Go right here to get the rules and to use.
The jury for this 21st award cycle consists of the 2024 Younger Artist Award winner Bryan Parnham (his solutions under seem in burgundy font); gallerist Thereza Pedrosa (whose solutions are coloured inexperienced); and the artist and educator Jimena Rios (her solutions are blue).
Marta Costa Reis: Please clarify the way you have been launched to modern jewellery, and what you’re now doing in relationship to it.
Thereza Pedrosa: I used to be born into the world of artwork. My father, Bruno Pedrosa, is an artist with greater than 50 years of expertise, and since childhood I’ve adopted him to exhibitions, gala’s, glassworks in Murano, bronze foundries, ceramic studios, and extra. Rising up in Veneto, [an Italian] area wealthy in tradition, I found as a young person the works of artists resembling Giampaolo Babetto, Stefano Marchetti, Annamaria Zanella, Stefania Lucchetta, and Carla Riccoboni—artists who opened my eyes to the expressive potential of latest jewellery and the individuality behind every creation. At round 17, I requested my father to show me the fundamentals of soldering, submitting, and hammering, and I started making my very own items. For greater than 15 years, alongside my research in cultural heritage conservation in Venice, I created silver jewellery and collaborated with design shops and museum bookshops, together with the Guggenheim in Venice. I finished after I was anticipating my first little one, and after the delivery of my second daughter, I based Thereza Pedrosa Gallery. At this time, I direct the gallery and curate exterior initiatives for museums, books, and artists.
Jimena Rios: I first studied artwork historical past in Barcelona, and my introduction to modern jewellery got here by the outdated constructing of Escola Massana. I needed to review there since you may really feel freedom and freshness within the backyard of the outdated hospital. I began, and one of the best a part of that point was the spirit that lived there—the combo of scholars from all around the world and the robust sense of group they created.
At this time, I educate in Argentina, and thru my faculty, Taller Eloi, I attempt to preserve that very same spirit alive. It feeds the items that emerge from the scholars’ palms.
Bryan Parnham: I discovered myself in metalsmithing lessons in undergrad, drawn there by the flexibility of the instruments. In different media I had studied, instruments just like the potter’s wheel or desk noticed had their focus in single supplies with solely delicate variation. You may use terracotta or porcelain; maple or mahogany. Past these slender variations, the instruments and curriculum didn’t permit for the wild curiosity of a rural child newly uncovered to a world outdoors Bedford County, VA, US.
The jewelers noticed can reduce something softer than the device metal it’s composed of, and my instructors within the metals program in Craft/Materials Research, at Virginia Commonwealth College, have been blissful to encourage using “different supplies.” The truth that they have been known as jewellery lessons appeared incidental. We made jewellery, however the classes have been extensively relevant. What are the bodily properties of the fabric at hand? How can that materials be altered? What’s the cultural relevance of that materials?
Training by the use of occupied with and constructing jewellery will be an training in economics, physics, chemistry, advertising, engineering, aesthetics, social politics, and many others. And with just a little creativeness it may open doorways to philosophy, fantastic artwork, design, historical past, expertise, and a dizzying multitude extra. At this time I’m nonetheless engaged with being a pupil of this under-appreciated area by persevering with to take part in its neurotic insistence that what we’re all doing is making jewellery. The persistent emphasis on what could be the least consequential facet of the sphere could possibly be what makes all of it so charming. We name it making jewellery but it surely’s a lot greater than this pedestrian nomenclature would recommend.
I’m at the moment making brooches and starting the planning levels of a nationwide instructing tour that introduces using photopolymer and promotes the dissolution of boundaries between Metalsmithing, Printmaking, Portray, and Images. (Please make inquiries to bryanparnham@gmail.com in case your instructional establishment needs to take part.)
The previous few years have seen plenty of disruption and uncertainty. What surprises you most in the way in which youthful generations reply to the fast-changing world round them?
Jimena Rios: The place I come from—South America, Argentina—change is a continuing. My college students have grown up inside a panorama of shifting politics and fragile economies, the place uncertainty turns into a part of on a regular basis life. Adaptability, for them, is sort of instinctive. What I discover shifting is their potential to rework instability into creativeness, to create which means within the midst of motion.
For this era, jewellery just isn’t an escape from actuality however a method to have interaction with it—a language of resilience and reflection. I’m more and more drawn to jewellery that doesn’t try to beautify the world however to talk to it, trusting in its communicative dimension—not as a manifesto, however as a quiet type of poetry, handed from one era to the following.
Bryan Parnham: I’m solely unequipped to reply this query as I’ve few or no acquaintances youthful than myself. Even have been I to have some connection to youthful folks, I wouldn’t make the error of equating that small group to an correct illustration of such an unlimited inhabitants as “youthful generations.” Nonetheless additional, I might be drastically embarrassed to enterprise something that could possibly be construed as a “Children today” fashion of response. But when I can say what surprises me most about the way in which anybody responds to alter, I might say the next: What surprises me most is that anybody is shocked in any respect.
Thereza Pedrosa: The world has modified dramatically in recent times, and what strikes me most—one thing I attempt to keep in mind for myself—is the exceptional adaptability of youthful generations. They transfer with nice agility, able to shifting course, turning challenges into alternatives for development, and embracing transformation with ease. Flexibility is a treasured high quality, one which we frequently lose over time, but it’s important in a world marked by fixed political, social, technological, and environmental shifts. I additionally discover it extremely stimulating to see the themes younger artists select to discover of their analysis, usually reflecting the heartbeat of our occasions in sudden and insightful methods.
What’s the single most necessary dialog for artists to be having as we speak?
Bryan Parnham: A humorous one.
There isn’t any singular subject extra necessary than one other, however with humor any dialog has a greater probability of being heard and appreciated by the events concerned.
Thereza Pedrosa: I don’t imagine there’s a single dialog that artists needs to be having. Every artist brings their very own background, historical past, and experiences—their very own distinctive lens by which they interpret life, supplies, and which means. This variety of views permits us, as viewers, to step outdoors our consolation zones and interact with concepts we’d not have encountered in any other case. For me, that is one in all artwork’s best presents: its energy to broaden our horizons, to deepen our understanding, and to open us to new methods of seeing. What issues most is that artists stay genuine to their voice—unafraid to take a place, to evolve, and by no means to develop into static of their beliefs or of their creative analysis.
Jimena Rios: A very powerful dialog for artists as we speak is about training and craft. Jewellery is an simple type of communication—it carries which means, reminiscence, and even worth. It may be an paintings, sure, however it’s also a manner of holding others shut, of protecting one thing secure.
Greater than ever, we have to return to the concept of training as an area of depth, and to craft as a type of information. Younger artists ought to know who got here earlier than them, who the gallerists are, and how you can work with them responsibly. From that consciousness, manufacturing will naturally develop into sustainable, considerate, political, and related.
Apart from grants resembling this one, what different methods can younger artists be inspired and supported?
Bryan Parnham: Undoubtedly, generational wealth is the best assist and encouragement a younger artist can hope for. These of us with out such luck are left with as we speak’s regrettable Reaganomic, Go-Fund-Me, “what you want is a grant” system, which gives not one of the cultural vitamins of a well-balanced breakfast. Younger artists will be inspired and supported by nice concepts, myths, delusions, cognitive bias, loving mother and father, and enthusiastic associates. These are the dependable means to gasoline a willful stubbornness and perception in your path.
Jimena Rios: Grants like this one are important for younger artists, however there are only a few. Past that, I imagine college students and new generations want to grasp—and we as educators should assist them see—the significance of constructing a profession slowly, with persistence and constant work.
On the similar time, we have to create a extra international house for jewellery, one which strikes past the Eurocentric framework and opens to cooperative exchanges between completely different geographies. Solely by that variety can the sphere keep alive, related, and really related to the world we reside in.
Thereza Pedrosa: Recognition is necessary at each stage of an artist’s profession—from rising to mid-career to established artists who’ve devoted their lives to their artwork and to mentoring others. That’s why I’m so happy to contribute, even in a small manner [as a juror], to this award, which performs a necessary function in encouraging younger artists initially of their journey. Past grants, I believe curators, museum administrators, gallerists, authors, and collectors all share a accountability to champion new voices—by together with them in exhibitions alongside established artists, buying their works for private and non-private collections, or that includes them in publications. This type of assist gives not solely visibility and monetary stability but additionally a profound sense of encouragement that may make all of the distinction. Supporting a younger artist at all times includes a level of threat—you’ll be able to by no means make sure how their path will unfold—however taking that threat is a part of what it means to actually imagine in artwork.
The opinions expressed listed below are the authors’ alone, and don’t essentially specific these of AJF.
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