Eunseok Han – Jewellery on display #5

Vor kurzem hat die Poetin und Performerin Nora Gomringer – ihr habt sie hier schon kennengelernt – auf Instagram ihre Geburtstags-Brosche gepostet. Wunderschön fand ich die und sehr besonders. Und ich habe gleich nachgeschaut, wer die Frau ist, die diesen ungewöhnlichen Schmuck macht. Eunseok Han ist Künstlerin – sie bezeichnet sich als zeitgenössische Schmuckkünstlerin – und lebt in  in Südkorea. Sie hat einen Abschluss in Metallhandwerk an der Dongduck-Frauenuniversität in Seoul gemacht und ein Zeichenstudium an der School of the Art Institute of Chicago absolviert. Ihre Schmuckstücke werden aus recycelten Materialien, vor allem gebrauchten Dosen, hergestellt, sie sind bunt, die Formen organisch und sie wirken auf mich als wären sie gerade dem Wasser entwachsen. Eunseok macht Broschen, Ringe, Ketten, Ohrringe. Ich habe sie kontaktiert und ihr einige Fragen gestellt. 

Eunseok, what motivated you to work with disposable items?

My work began with our daily life full of disposable items. The disposables we meet every day are considered as non-precious materials and are used only once then discarded. And I thought that it would be nice to make a new type of jewellery by disassembling and reassembling it, although it is beautiful on its own.  Generally, diamonds, gold, and silver are great materials of jewellery. On the other hand, disposable cans and plastics have been considered inadequate materials for jewellery. However, I thought we could make beautiful jewellery with non-precious, even with discarded materials. So, I started to do it. 

Is your work also an answer to our “throw-away society“?

Not an answer to a “throw-away-society”, but an expression of pity for discarded things. Wouldn’t it be the beginning of the answer to pay attention to the things that are inadvertently thrown away around us? My work is just a small effort to find an answer. 

What stories do you want to tell with your jewellery?

The disposable products are considered one of the main cause of environmental pollution. Because of them, the environment is polluted, the earth is warming, and the water temperature rises. As a result, many living things are threatened their lives. Corals, for example, bleach due to the pollution, and lose its beautiful colours. I used discarded cans to express the beautiful colours of coral that are gradually disappearing due to the pollution. On the other hand, the white colour of bleached coral represents our polluted reality. 

You are an artist, exhibit your jewellery in galleries, is jewellery your main form of expression?

I majored in metal crafts in graduate school, and I even won a competition for designing household items using silver and copper. Since 2020, after COVID-19, I have been mainly working on jewellery using recycled materials to protect the environment.

What does the creation process look like?

First, I collect the recycled products that are thrown away and sort them by colour. Then I disassemble them into small pieces and reassemble them to fit their shape. For durability, it is completed through 4 times bonding processes.

What else is important to tell?

I think people including me have a responsibility to protect the nature of the planet we live in. I will continue to work with discarded materials such as plastic or plastic bags as well as recycled cans. My work began with reviving discarded disposables and I wish not only the discarded disposables, but also our precious nature and even ourselves to stay alive for a long time. 

Selten habe ich so interessanten und ästhetisch ansprechenden Schmuck aus recycelten Materialien gesehen. Ihr solltet auch unbedingt den Instagram-Account von Eunseok Han besuchen. Ausgestellt und verkauft werden die Arbeiten der jungen Südkoreanerin in einigen Galerien, aber am besten man schreibt sie an – sozoh2@gmail.com­ –, wenn man eines ihrer Stücke erwerben möchte. Ihr Schmuck steht ganz oben auf meiner Wishlist!

Fotos: © Eunseok Han