Project / MAKE ME party (Idar-Oberstein)
Within Afterschool, MAKE ME party is the most important artistic project to follow directly from the MAKE ME series. The research team – composed of Clarisse Bruynbroeck, Liesbet Bussche, Hilde Van der Heyden, Pia Clauwaert and Hilde De Decker – collected tips and advice from the MAKE ME interviews but, contrary to all expectations, did not apply them literally in their individual artistic practices. On the contrary, the team turned this information into an autonomous project that is now touring internationally as MAKE ME party. The aim is that this artistic approach to research will have a greater impact on an audience than an illustrative interpretation of a number of concrete facts.
As a result, the project MAKE ME party functions as a means to further debate the appeal of contemporary jewellery. The research team wishes to conduct this discussion not only with jewellery makers but also and especially with a broad audience, hence the idea of organizing a sparkling party and inviting people – worldwide.
MAKE ME party was first organized on 24 June 2014 at Villa Bengel, the exhibition space of the former industrial chain factory Jakob Bengel in Idar-Oberstein. The project was held there at the invitation of the Gemstone and Jewellery department of the Trier University of Applied Sciences. Thanks to two webcams that were recording the entire happening via live streaming, not only the guests at Villa Bengel could join the party, but Internet users around the world too.
With MAKE ME party, Afterschool is organizing, not an exhibition, but a – sparkling – party. All of the party’s ingredients present subtle references to the world of jewellery, from the drinking cups to the wine, the music to the snacks, the napkins to the toilet paper. Afterschool’s research team acts as the hostess of this perfectly orchestrated party where each visitor will feel surprisingly ‘made up.’
The essence of jewellery is that it is a catalyst of longings and fears, emotions, sexual desires, social relations and the need for an identity of one’s own, in brief, a catalyst of everything that drives people in life. Whoever is aware of the incredible wealth of decorative and symbolic value that jewellery has embodied in its long history and of the elementary motives that underlie the wearing of jewels will, on the basis of reciprocity, always be able to find a confirmation of his or her own identity and longings in these small objects and thus also something that makes them happy. (M. Unger, Sieraad in context: Een multidisciplinair kader voor de beschouwing van het sieraad {‘Jewellery in context: A multidisciplinary framework for the consideration of jewellery’}, Leiden, 2010)
A project like MAKE ME party proves that jewellery’s appeal still resides in what is most ordinary. For instance, jewels and their accompanying characteristics are often used as elements of seduction in advertising campaigns. The same kind of light deceit – i.e., the appeal to the human quest for identity and the conjuring of virtually unquenchable longings – is the starting point of this party.
The MAKE ME party project makes use of the familiar language used around jewellery (silver, gold, pearl, ruby, diamond, etc.) and in doing so refers both to its physical characteristics (brilliance, gleam, etc.) and to its associative, often symbolic meaning (beauty, preciousness, vanity, etc.). Guests are surrounded all evening by luxurious materials and tempted by shine and glint during this sparkling party.
MAKE ME party is a way to challenge us, jewellery designers, into getting involved once more in the game of longing and temptation and into formulating a contemporary response. Can we convey this same longing that is staged in MAKE ME party – and the accompanying products – to the public and thereby develop our practice more successfully?
The project can also be seen as a light-hearted commentary on the closed world of contemporary jewellery. For the main part, jewellery remains destined for everyday life and not for the display cabinets of galleries, museum archives or the storage drawers of collectors. With this project, the research team of Afterschool wishes to give makers and wearers a fresh view on a contemporary discourse.
