Glad Påsk from Sweden

Happy Easter from Sweden!
Here are some of the festive traditions we've experienced over the long weekend: visiting the Easter market, decorating the påskris, painting eggs and becoming the witch (face painting). We've learnt so much about the Swedish culture while we've been here, particular over Easter.

Easter in Sweden is a secular holiday, where it is tradition for children to to paint their faces and dress up as witches to go door knocking for candy. Sound familiar...?

Kate and Georgia's 1 Month Travel Anniversary

While you've all been settling back into uni and classes, Georgia and myself have been in Stockholm, with the lovely Safira. For the last few days though, we've been in Swedish Lapland - Kiruna - where we've experienced minus 15 degrees and a number of winter related activities, which as of tonight has included seeing The Northern Lights. How could we not post about this, nor use it as inspiration for our souvenir project?! Unfortunately none of the photos we took came out, but instead here's some pictures of The Ice Hotel, which we also saw today! Enjoy!

Meanwhile, in Munich...

Safira, Georgia and Kate have a romantic dinner at Victor's house.
...Thanks for the wine, Karin.

17 Days of Madness

This trip has been such an amazing experience. I've fallen in love with just about everything and can't wait until I get a chance to visit again...I've started saving up!

I will leave you now with some (more) photos, I do love my photos.

Amsterdam, Oh Amsterdam

Awesome bike - Amsterdam edition

Awesome bike - Munich edition

Behind the clock tower - Munich

Funky tiles #1 - U Bahn, Munich

Coolest train stations ever!

Funky tiles #2 - U Bahn, Munich

Mirror in the underground, perfect for last minute touch ups - U Bahn, Munich

Funky tiles #3 - U Bahn, Pforzheim

Awesome telephone - Pforzheim edition

Snow sprinkles

Plane day sprinkles

Things that i saw

No joke i thought these are chewing gums OHH~~~~ i'm so innocent   :)

photo taken from CODA

Innate freedom

Post Eight: Kate

For those of you who fell asleep on the train to Pforzheim... Surprise!

Our Last Jewellery Moment

Airport Jewellery 

 A collaboration between Brigit and Victoria

Materials: Receipt for tea and coffee, boredom/anxiety, diamond studs 

Peter - Day Fifteen and Sixteen - Trains, Snow and Old Cities

Bruuur, it's cold today, cold enough for it to snow overnight!

For next two days, before we all leave to go back to Sydney, we'll be traveling to both Pforzheim to see Schmuck Museum, and to Nuremberg to see Helen Britton's exhibition at the Neues Museum.

After having our breakfast, we started onto our train trips to Pforzheim.

I have to say, I always found taking a long train rides interesting, since it a different from the usual type of traveling I have experience. In my whole life, including these two trips, I have taken a total of five times. It's always to interesting to see how "life" actually passes you by, and in trains, you get to see it more up close and personal rather than flying and seeing minuscule dots that are moving. It's also interesting to see how life changes from town to town to countryside. It one of the best ways to become an observer on how style of life changes geographically.

One of the many views from the train. 

Then we arrived Pforzheim, rushing to the museum due to the freezing cold. Seriously, the city went from looking like it was the end of winter to a winter wonderland in a couple of hours of being there. It was great to go to see the Schmuck Museum and see the progress and history of jewellery, and the development of jewellery in the the last century.

A Leuchterwiebchen!

After we were done with the Schmuck Museum, we then ventured off to catch our next 3 hour train to Nuremberg. By the time we got there, it was night, and we were hungry. So we all went to a local restaurant. My god, I almost flipped when I as Leuchterwiebchen (a women carved chandelier with dear antlers attached to them) because here was an decorative ornament, that I was barely able find anything about it, that was the bases of one of artist Jane Dodd's jewellery series.

The Beautiful view of Nuremberg' Cathedral 

Then, it was our last whole day in Germany finally arrived, what a shame. After we went to see Helen Britton's exhibition, we had some free time before we all went back on the train to Munich, so we did some walking around this Medieval city. I can't wait for the warm weather.

Emma: Thoughts of Home on day 16

On the train from Munich to Pforzheim and from Pforzheim to Nuremburg I started thinking about what Souvenir I would create for this project. Here's what I was writing with a few additions:

Home is instinctual- whereever we've lived/stayed in Amsterdam and Munich I have been calling it home. In a way it is our home here; it's home base, where we can relax, hang out and sleep (without worrying about how cold it is outside) but it's not home with a captial 'H'.

I didn't really think about 'Home' until I skyped with my sisters as they were cooking dinner back in Sydney. We were having such a nice, long chat that they put the laptop they were talking to me through at the head of the dining table so that I could "have dinner with them" (we usually sit down to a family meal every night). There was laughter, lots of easy chatter, teasing and the occasional swear word - it made me really miss them.

Travelling with friends is hard, no matter how close (or not) you were to them at the start of the trip, friendships develop quickly. You find out your own and everyone's good and bad personality traits quickly and you have to learn to cope with whatever is happening. Sharing stories about eachother's 'Homes' was my favourite part about getting to know everyone. Everyone has such different family lives and upbringings; they all had relationships of varying degrees and strengths that was interesting to compare with my own.

"Gezellig", the dutch word from the beginning of the trip, has stuck with me throughout the trip. Every time I took another photo of another door I thought about who inhabited the spaces behind it.

Home means so many different things to different people and I think that's what I want to explore. I'm not sure if it fits with our brief yet but I think I'll have to look over that when I am less sleepy...

Books

There is so much to see at Schmuck and its satellite events. So much that it becomes completely overwhelming unless you have some means of anchoring the experience. Some people record their thoughts in journal or blog entries, others take photographs or sketch. I buy books - the laziest (that is, until you have to carry them home) and most expensive option.

Schmuck transforms into a book pilgrimage. I get book envy. In 2011, I injured myself by carrying Karl Fritsch's Metrosideros Robusta around Amsterdam. I buy books predominately in German because I get caught up in the moment and convince myself that the pictures are worth it. I had to buy an extra suitcase. In 16 days, I collected 16.5 kilograms of books - almost a third of my body weight. It is a personal record.

These books reference my experience. Metaphorically, they are my photographs, my journal entries and my sketches. Each one reminds me of a specific person, place or exhibition.

These books find their home in my homemade jewellery library where, just like a giant printed jewellery box, I keep as many of these precious pieces in my possession as possible.

Brigit

What's better than a cuddle from Ruudt Peters and Fabrizio?

Two kisses on the cheek from Otto Kunzli!

Emma: The History of Jewellery in Pforzheim on Day 15

 Pforzheim was beautiful! and it was snowing!! Not going to lie, I was pretty excited despite how cold it was. 

 

  

The Jewellery Museum Pforzheim was our destination and it was well worth the walk. Seeing a museum based solely on jewellery was a little amazing. Not only did we get to see their One Hundred and One rings exhibition (spectacular!) but we also got to explore their contemporary and historical collections that were on display.

Jenny checking out the wall of tools.

 The contemporary collection part of a physical time line of the movements that Jewellery went through. I really liked being able to see an actual representation of the movements that were important to the development of our form of art. It's not something we get to learn about much in any of the general theory units at uni because we are usually looking at painting, sculpture and photography. We have done it in our object theory classes but this was much more specific because it was only jewellery [and not glass or ceramics].

 

I loved all of the ancient tribal jewellery because we got read about what jewellery was used for in various cultures and observe the parallels between those cultures and even ours. The collection was huge - donated by collectors who travelled the globe. There were pieces made for warriors, for decoration, for rank, for ceremonies, for religion. It was all intricate, handmade and so colourful!

Visitors stickers from the museum: an unintentional artwork on the traffic light