Luisa Kuschel and Peleg Mercedes Matityahu

19 June until 27 August 2022

Luisa Kuschel and Peleg Matityahu are winners of the Marzee Prize for Graduates in 2021. At the invitation of Marzee, Luisa and Peleg have stayed for 6 months at INTRO, a gallery for art jewellery by recent graduated students, at the invitation of Marzee. INTRO in Amsterdam also provided them with a place to live and work. The work on display at Galerie Marzee in Nijmegen was created during their stay at INTRO. Their work is on display until 27 August 2022 together with the exhibitions of Stefano Marchetti, Carla Nuis and Sondra Sherman.

Luisa Kuschel graduated (BFA) from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK) in Hildesheim, Germany in 2021

The Beaded Confinement

“My BFA graduate project started with the question how we ended up in a world in which black people have been, and still are perceived, as different, if not inferior, to white people. Due to my personal ties to southern Africa I focused on glass beads and their role in this region. Just like in the neighbouring South Africa, glass bead jewellery is worn in Mozambique to manifest people’s African identity in the face of the cultural inundation from Europe and America.”

“With The Beaded Confinement, I aim to draw attention to the hidden aspects of glass beads by presenting them in a different way: enveloping a set of shackles and a chain that prevents people from liberating themselves from the identity attributed to them. In my work, the glass beads are a symbol of enslavement as they were used as a tool to shackle and chain the identity of black people.”

Peleg Mercedes Matityahu graduated in 2021 from Shenkar College of Art, Design and Engineering in Ramat Gan, Israel

“A few years ago, I endured a traumatic head injury, ultimately resulting in short-term memory loss. The inability to process new memories led me to research material that would represent and act as a memory holder. A material that would enable disassembly and reassembly through intuitive work by blending the conscious and the subconscious. The result is a series of jewellery that remembers and at the same time forgets what it was and what it is now.”

 

“I started with whole gypsum strips (/orthopedic cast/ plaster straps) which I disassembled by rinsing with hot water. The water dissolved the gypsum out and thus the gauze was exposed. I reassembled the material by repeated and precise work of weaving silver chains in the discovered textile. Where the cast decided to stay, I expected it in the golden (or silver) leaves.”