Issue #18 Thinking in Motion Launch

The urge to repeat movements over and over again, methodically and resolutely is something that is significant for both my personality and my work. Running kilometre after kilometre or slowly sewing one element to another one by one until they finally make a big shape hundreds of plastic scales. Multiplicity and recurrence attract me. The variations between the details become important creating patterns and rhythms. My aim is to make jewellery where dynamic patterns form harmony and balance.

I grew up in Umeå, Sweden, where I was born in 1983. I studied at the Natural Science programme, convinced that I would become a mathematician or a doctor, but in 2003 I moved to Göteborg and started at the jewellery department at HDK.

To me jewellery is communication. The life of a piece starts with an idea or when experimenting with a material. When the finished piece meets an audience another process starts. My experiences are mixed with the thoughts and associations of others and the object develops. The intimate connection to a wearer and a body makes the relation to the recipient very special.

Since 2010 I run a gallery in Göteborg – Four. Four represents about 40 different jewellery artists and shows exhibitions with artists from all over the world. Four is also a workshop that I share with my three colleagues Hanna Liljenberg, Linnéa Eriksson and Ammeli Engström.

Together with jewellery artist Sanna Svedested I prosecute different kind of artistic projects and jewellery adventures. Diagonal is a cooperation initiated in 2010.

Jessica Hemmings writes about textiles. She studied Textile Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA (Honors) in 1999 and Comparative Literature (Africa/Asia) at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, earning an MA (Distinction) in 2000. Her PhD, awarded by the University of Edinburgh in 2006, was published by kalliope paperbacks under the title Yvonne Vera: The Voice of Cloth (2008). In 2010 she edited a collection of essays titled In the Loop: Knitting Now (Black Dog), and in 2012 edited The Textile Reader (Berg) and wrote Warp & Weft (Bloomsbury). Her editorial and curatorial project Cultural Threads is about postcolonial thinking and contemporary textile practice (Bloomsbury, 2015) and was accompanied by a travelling exhibition Migrations (2015–17).  

In 2022 Jessica co-edited Violence: materiality (PARSE Journal issue 15, with Ole Lützow-Holm), and in 2020 Intersections (issue 11, with Kristina Hagström-Ståhl and Jyoti Mistry). Recent writing includes “Can That Be Taught? lessons in tacit knowledge” in Somaesthetics and Design Culture (Brill, 2023); “Material Scent: Textiles Beyond Touch” in Kinesic Intelligence in the Humanities (Routledge, 2023); and the second edition of The Textile Reader (Bloomsbury, 2023). She is currently Professor of Craft at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and was the Rita Bolland Fellow at the Research Centre for Material Culture, the Netherlands (2020–23).

Sue Lawty is a British artist and designer who constructs works from raphia, hemp and lead, and makes drawings and assemblages using tiny stones, creating a kind of pixelated cloth. The work is slow, thoughtful, and meticulous. Defined as much by absence as presence, it quietly draws the viewer in to notice almost imperceptible differences. First-hand involvement in landscape – running and walking in remote and rocky terrain – is central to her work. Anchored in an emotional, spiritual and physical engagement with the land, her pieces have been described as ‘spiritual… meditative… a deeply contemplative experience’.

Robert Muponde is a critic, editor, writer and Professor in the School of Literature, Language and Media at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is interested in a variety of postcolonial literary topics, including visual art, creative writing and the politics of aesthetic redress and genre-busting. His publications include: The Scandalous Times of a Book Louse: A Memoir of a Childhood (Penguin Random House, 2021) and Some Kinds of Childhood: Images of History and Resistance in Zimbabwean Literature (Africa World Press, 2015). With Emma Laurence he co-edited While the Harvest Rots: Possessing Worlds of Kudzanai Chiurai’s Art (Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery, 2017). Currently, he is researching material for The Lost Tales of Papati Papati Hiyayi, a book that focuses on experiences of lostness.

Bálint Veres has a PhD in aesthetics and is tenured Associate Professor and Head of DLA / PhD-in-practice Program at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, and holder of a prestigious teaching award (Apáczai Csere János-Award). He is President of the Hungarian Forum for Somaesthetics and member of the International Association for Aesthetics, International Society of Intermedia Studies and the European Network of Somaesthetics. In 2023, his book Somaesthetics and Design Culture, co-edited with Richard Shusterman, was published by Brill. He is the organiser of the international interdisciplinary conferences “Design Culture and Somaesthetics” (2019), “The Promise of Pragmatist Aesthetics” (2022) and “Designing Everyday Experience” (2023). 

Bálint pursued his studies with a parallel interest in humanities and music. In addition to graduating from Eötvös Loránd University, he studied music composition, piano, bassoon and singing. His professional fields of interest include contemporary aesthetics, somaesthetics, design culture theories, music, media, architecture and disability studies. In addition to his activities as a researcher and teacher, he has worked as a critic and artistic counsellor at various institutions and as co-editor and curator at Arcus Temporum Art Festival of Pannonhalma (2005–14) and founder of MOME TransferLab (2012–19), an interdisciplinary workshop for social design and equal opportunities.