Winner of the Swarovski element award at this year’s ITS festival Sarah Vedel Hurtigkarl and Raluca Grada are two avant-garde RCA students who bond over their obscure love of oxidising metals.
Curating their inaugural copper based jewellery collection exclusively for ITS, an annual international festival based in Trieste which supports emerging creative talent, Sarah and Rulca are the design duo with a diverse background. Training in the fields of architecture, metalwork and fashion, this pair approach each project they undertake conceptually and then consider which materials are best to work with.
Projecting images of melting ice onto the ceiling, before tracing over the outlines, Sarah and Rulca used these shapes as moulds for their copper jewellery collection. Sarah explains: “We started off studying an object in place on a surface and then worked around a shape; this then developed into jewellery. The main feature was that everything was morphing from this traditional jewellery element, an earring could drip into a necklace.” Crafting each piece by hand at college; diluting, setting, polishing and oxidising the coppers with meticulous detail, each accessory gives the illusion that it is an extension of the wearer’s body. Intending some of the pieces to be glued onto the skin directly and others to be attached to a garment, liquid jewellery gives a romantic, elegant and intelligent finish to any outfit.
