CAIRO: Egyptian artist and jewelry maker Farah Abdelhamid’s recent experiential exhibition in Cairo was billed as a renegotiation of the relationship between jewelry and the body. It was a fascinating ‘rebranding’ of jewelry as more than just an aesthetic object.
The one-week exhibition — “Yes, No, Maybe So” — took place at The Nook, a contemporary exhibition space in Cairo and “explored the space between object and jewelry, what is wearable, what is not and what lies in the middle,” according to the press release, which added: “We think we know what jewelry is and what it’s made of, yet a lot of the interesting nuances of its relationship with the body, its materials, social contexts and experience is lost in our consumer-driven world.”
The exhibition featured illustrations by artist Mona El-Kateb and video art by Marwan El-Gamal. (Supplied)
Against this backdrop of fixed assumptions about jewelry and its aesthetic function, Abdelhamid “looks at the body as a subject rather than just a canvas for wearing.”
The result is an original experience which “delves into the space between jewelry as a form of accessorizing that is defined by aesthetic norms and jewelry as an object that exists in and of itself as a piece of art sans interaction with the body.”
The exhibition, which also marked the launch of Abdelhamid’s latest commercial collection, featured illustrations by artist Mona El-Kateb and video art by Marwan El-Gamal.
The one-week exhibition — “Yes, No, Maybe So” — took place at The Nook, a contemporary exhibition space in Cairo. (Supplied)
Supplementing the three artists’ works were curatorial texts and other related content by Nour Hassan — writer and founder of Radical Contemporary, a Cairo-based creative and curatorial platform.
Abdelhamid told Arab News that she began to formulate the ideas behind the exhibition during her BFA studies in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design. They now form part of her ongoing research on the meanings that surround contemporary jewelry and its relationship to the body.
“A lot of times my teachers wouldn’t understand the aesthetics of the style of my work,” she said. “They’d say that it’s so loud and busy, or that it’s so cultural and ornamental.”
Abdelhamid was intrigued by why her teachers kept insisting “Less is more.”
Abdelhamid told Arab News that she began to formulate the ideas behind the exhibition during her BFA studies in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design. (Supplied)
“I kept thinking ‘More is more.’ That really went back to history, society and the visual culture that we come from. I wanted not just to identify that from a historical point of view, but also to see how necessary it is to understand the language of jewelry,” said Abdelhamid, who is also founder and creative director of F for Farah and Studio with Farah, a contemporary jewelry brand.
When the time came to think of a graduation project, Abdelhamid settled on researching the history of Egyptian jewelry from the ancient Egyptians to the Bedouins.
“I started stripping away all the visual triggers associated to this culture and — in appreciation of minimalism and form as function — I narrowed (jewelry) down to an object that is in relation to the body,” she explained. “I set up different kinds of social experiments and had my friends and colleagues sit with objects, that I would record them interacting with. That is what (led) me to investigate objects in general, but also how people react to these objects in the framework of jewelry.”
“A lot of times my teachers wouldn’t understand the aesthetics of the style of my work,” Abdelhamid said. (Supplied)
All of these ideas came together in Abdelhamid’s March exhibition, which consisted of three parts.
Upon entering the exhibition space, the visitor was welcomed by pedestals that exhibited Abdelhamid’s commercial jewelry collection made of silver, gold and gold-plated brass.
“The pieces invite you to try them on differently,” Abdelhamid said. “The ring doesn’t fit on the finger traditionally, for example, or the brooch hangs with a lot of sound and it requires you to feel it differently.”
In the second and third parts of the exhibition Abdelhamid used multiple materials, including silver, clay, silicone, fabric, thread and rice to construct wearable jewelry. On one of the walls was what Abdelhamid described as a “very inviting visual installation” — a site-specific artwork she installed at Venice Design last year.
Upon entering the exhibition space, the visitor was welcomed by pedestals that exhibited Abdelhamid’s commercial jewelry collection made of silver, gold and gold-plated brass. (Supplied)
The installation featured silicone spheres “in skin tones mimicking the exact moments that the skin morphs, to accommodate the piece of jewelry,” according to the press release.
Against another wall were shelves displaying Abdelhamid’s “more experimental jewelry,” made out of Pyrex glass. These pieces were “inspired by forms and the body’s connection to an object because they actually all fit in the hand very nicely,” she explained, adding that they were “different in the sense that they introduced the role of the wearer into the making process.”
This was manifest in how Abdelhamid had used different forms of glass in multiple colors, and invited people to paint their own piece of glass, before turning it into wearable jewelry on the spot.
In the second and third parts of the exhibition Abdelhamid used multiple materials, including silver and clay to construct wearable jewelry. (Supplied)
In the same room was another installation — “Union” — which was also displayed at Venice Design in 2019. It is a five-meter long necklace “made of silicone and rice-stuffed fabrics to create chain links to emphasize a mass, weight, flexibility and fragility, color and scale, similar to that of the body and skin” and described by Abdelhamid as “a play on the scale of jewelry.”
“One could carry the weight of the chain links alone or share it with other people. It was a playful experience,” she explained.
The final exhibition room contained a video piece by El-Gamal, as well as an installation of hollow silicone pots, which hung at eye level, inviting the audience to touch them.
The exhibition was billed as a renegotiation of the relationship between jewelry and the body. (Supplied)
“You could actually walk through the silicone pieces and experience them with the upper part of your body rather than just with your hands or legs as you would with the silicone necklace,” Abdelhamid said.
Audience reaction to Abdelhamid’s novel and bold exhibition was very encouraging, she said: “People were driving conversation. They picked things up and felt comfortable playing with them. They were curious.”
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