Past events
2023
2021
OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival
OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival focuses on jewellery-related exhibitions, lectures, workshops and open studios – in a programme put together by Current Obsession.
OBSESSED! runs 1—30 November in various cities across the Netherlands and Belgium, accompanied by a free edition of Current Obsession Paper and an interactive webpage.
A bit of history
OBSESSED! began as an attempt to connect, promote and discuss a number of significant, yet uncoordinated jewellery events (exhibitions, fairs and symposia) occurring throughout The Netherlands in November 2017.
The aim was to achieve a larger cultural impact by uniting these events and institutions (such as Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk Museum, CODA Museum, Design Museum Den Bosch, among others) into one programme under one name, and inviting local and international artists and public to join in.
Several years prior, Current Obsession team have been contemplating the idea of organising a ‘jewellery biennial’ in The Netherlands, to reflect the local heritage and the history of the discipline. A happening that would be avant-garde, edgy, creative, but also include different kinds of jewellery (such as antique and fine jewellery) as well as body-related practices from neighbouring disciplines (fashion, design, performance, etc.)
So when back in 2017 it came to our attention that a series of major jewellery-related events would incidentally occur in different cities throughout The Netherlands, we immediately knew this was our chance!
With the guidance and support of Marjan Unger (art historian, author of the book Jewellery Matters, and one of the organisers of the eponymous Rijksmuseum Symposium) and Ruudt Peters (renown jewellery artist), Current Obsession began setting up the festival’s framework, developing in-depth content and the possibilities for exchange.
The Festival aims to boost public interest towards the local artistic jewellery scene and to help re-establish The Netherlands as a leading creative force in the field of contemporary jewellery, underpinning rich history of innovation, experimentation and fresh ideas.
We see OBSESSED! as an ideal project to help attract a larger public to the field of artistic jewellery, and that is why our main goal is to create accessible content that would introduce jewellery to general public in a captivating way, and distribute this content for free, making it available countrywide at a range of locations dedicated to design and culture.
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Plan Your Trip
There are so many ways to do OBSESSED!, with truly something for every palate. Short on time? Spend a Day in a Workshop! Prefer to promenade? Hop on the Museum Path! You can jump in and Get Involved with events designed for a participatory and hands-on experience, or shed the white cube and explore jewellery in informal and intimate surroundings, with Impromptu Encounters. Let us be your guide for a personalised take on OBSESSED!
Coming soon! The OBSESSED! guides ✨
Talk to us!
Email: obsessed@current-obsession.com
OBSESSED! Team:
Guusje de Bruin — Fundraising
Katja van Deurzen — Internship
Marina Elenskaya — Creative Direction
Matthias Kispert — Sound Design
Vivian R. Morad — Project Management
Margaret Munchheimer — Obsessed! Paper Editor
Sofia Nikolaeva — Graphic Design
Sven Raju — Website Design
Frank Verkade — Programme Management
Marc Ferrer Vives and Etto Pacoste — Visuals and Identity
We thank all the participating artists from OBSESSED! 2023:
The sun stayed wan and dot, dot, dot…
Meeree Lee , Jinzi Liu
Ready for Fake Off
Annelieke Landré
Das Leben am Haverkamp: screening alter egos
Lisa Konno, Sarah Blok
HATCH: Sanctuary
Caroline Bach, Darius Wojdyga, Maria Stella Lidyaki, Chella Giis, Claire Normand
GEMZ: Unpacked
Andreea Cojocaru, Dominik Cunningham, Elise Hoebeke, Fleuri La Belle Ngapy, Karoline Healy Maureen Kortenbusch, Pauline Hepner, Sulo Bee, Xinyi Wang, Yu Fujiwara, Zofia Skoroszewska
Awn – Obsessed!
Josephine Winther, Marie Rimmen, Ruth Gilmour, Kathleen Reilly, Gitte Nygaard
Make A Difference
Bachelor students of the jewellery department at Sint Lucas Antwerpen & Tim Carson.
My Forbidden Garden
Hyewon Jeong
Come Rain or Come Shine // Moving Things #6
Jeannette Jansen & Gésine Hackenberg
When lions learn to swim 2023
Kalkidan Hoex
FOTOCOPY S04
Elsken Atrops, Volker Atrops, Ada Chen, Lin Cheung, Jacopo Calonaci, Kiko Gianocca, Stefan Gougherty, Corrina Goutos, Adam Grinovich, Alex Ju, Luisa Kuschel, Margherita de Martino Norante, Simon Marsiglia, Florian Milker, Noon Passama, Annika Pettersson, Kellie Riggs, Moniek Schrijer, Georgina Treviño, Julia Walter, Mallory Weston, Ashley Khirea Wahba
Kontrapunkt 2.0
Rita Besnyői, Vica Gábor, Lieta Marziali, Luca Sági
MASieraad In Flux
Yotam Bahat, Jana Brevick, Laila Marie Costa, Ana Escobar Saavedra, Daniel Jirkovski, Diana Kirdeeva, Jeannette Knigge, Meeree Lee, Jinzi Liu, Into Niilo, Mengying Sun, Jiawei Xu
Yili Zhao
Wie wat vindt heeft slecht gezocht / Those who find, haven’t searched well
Anneleen Swillen, Charlotte Vanhoubroeck, Jesse Magee, Joani Groenewald, Liesbet Bussche
Madeli Viljoen, Maria Konschake, Patricia Domingues
Two sides – one story: Pin mechanism and brooch back design
Daniela Malev
Burn Baby Burn
Margherita Chinchio, Marguerite Bones, Martina Turini
Crafting Dimensions: Dreams of Augmented Gems
Natalia Krasnodebska, UTOPIA BLU – Philip H. Wilck and Tiia Vahula, Noel Wilson
Dinuo Liao, giosampietro
Melt Jewellery
Prachi Jain
Let’s Get Phygital
Dijun Sha, Mandy Dai, Chu-Hui (Mary) Lin, Yawen (Elwen) Luo, Yunru Xie, Madalena Apolinario, Sousa Nunes Sereno, Shiyu Huang, Mia Vilcins, Kung- hsuan Chang, Qiuwen Lyu, Xinmiao Yu, Katrin-Maria Terras, Lisandra Türkson, Anni Vallsalu, Epp Vislapuu, Sarah Nicolai, Tyana Verstraete, Guus Vandeweerd, Giusi Schuller
huis / dům / בַּיִת / casa
Ana Escobar, Daniel Jirkovsky, Yotam Bahat, Ruudt Peters
Paramnesia
Samantha Sloane & Kristina Merchant
Closer Distant
Silke Fleischer
City Pearls
Machteld van Joolingen, Sophia Zobel, Lena Kosztyucsenko, Iris Nieuwenburg, Anouk Schepers, Nastasia Gendreau, Esmee Muijlwijk, Judith Schwendener
Fata Morgana
Stefanie Verhoef
Elemental Connections
Julia Duff Hundermark & Sandra Savelli
Who the fuck am i?
Ted Noten
Cherished Chemistries
Caroline Bach, Ela Bauer, Marguerite Bones, Paul Derrez, Morgane De Klerk, Alex Gasparis
Gabriella Goldsmith, Floor Mommersteeg, ShinkaQ, Triin Kukk, Martina Turini, Chloe Valorso
Stefanie Verhoef, Sophia Zobel
From Tim to Time
Triin Kukk, Anna Tamm
[IN] + [TUH] + [TWYND]
Arne Van De Mierop, Chanyoung Chang, Emma Gregory, Fengyang Jiang, Gaëlle Van Durme, Ildze Bogana, Jade Houben, Jill Depuydt, Julia Mercier, Karen Vanmol, Luca Sági, Machteld Lambeets, Seunggwan Kang, Shunxin Chen Sophia Oberhauser, Vivi Touloumidi, Wieke Aerts, Xinyao Ding
Yuyeong Choi
Keen to participate in the OBSESSED! 2025 programme?
We are currently accepting applications via this link until 31 March 2025.
Selection Guidelines
OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival is an initiative that carefully strings together various jewellery related events throughout the Netherlands and Belgium. In order to create as widely accessible a programme as possible, we reserve the option to include or prioritise applications, which are in alignment with the OBSESSED! spirit and the following ideals:
Multidisciplinarity — The festival programming invites a multidisciplinary approach, including all manner of events from the full spectrum of the jewellery universe.
Accessibility — We encourage events which allow accessibility for the general public, and reserve the right not to include proposals which focus too narrowly in any niche of interest as to discourage participation on a wider scale.
Community — The festival aims to foster and strengthen a sense of community from within the field of jewellery. Therefore, we encourage and may prioritise group exhibitions, collective practices, collaboration and cooperation between multiple artists, etc.
Relevance — In keeping with the festival’s objective to respond to and amplify voices within the field, we actively work to address common themes which we observe to be of particular urgency and interest to broad segments of the jewellery community at a given time. While we strive to spotlight all avenues of artistic inquiry, for the 2025 Edition, a few examples of themes we are broadly working with include: 1. Transformation Through Adornment; 2. Jewellery as a Ritual of Self-Care; 3. Adornment and Spirituality; 4. The Evolution of Materials.
As facilitators and coordinators, our main focus and attention goes toward providing digital and printed communication, and providing the information necessary to connect all interested parties, to give you the best possible festival! For this reason, we will also prioritise those artists who have a secured location or leads for locations for their event first, before providing whatever assistance we may be able to offer to less comprehensive proposals.
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