The Marzee International Graduate Show 2025

The Graduate Show of this year presents a generation of artists that all, one way or another, are fascinated by the concept of identity. The exhibition demonstrates many different perspectives on the subject. Whether about national identity, gender identity or memories and traces of persons and environments that define a person, or about the experiences that explain what we have become. Taste preferences are important for these designers and artists who graduated as a bachelor or master. Also the idea of identity-loss belongs to the overarching theme. Memories and locations are important for many as is their search for intense feelings or defining experiences. Memories are the traces of something past and they are broadly associated with melancholy and nostalgia. Even surviving is experienced as painful.

We see a lot of pieces that express the designers’ interest in a formal or material aspect of an object. We find clipping techniques, classical forging techniques, granulation techniques, embroidery and other textile treatment, as well as refined material use and material expression, unorthodox choices of materials and the use of waste residue that is upgraded and filled with meaning. All these design attitudes result in the mystery of value and the importance of meaning. The forms and materials used, range between crude treatment and refined processing and the craftsmanship in most of the exhibits is of a good quality. Also and maybe predominantly, designers practice experimental crafting and research to attain a personal style and designer identity. The application of many different materials is also a metaphor for multicultural identities in a globalised world. 

That multicultural reality is an important issue, is visible in the work of Lili Barglowska and in the jewellery of Punch Patcharakamol Suwannakit: the latter presents a spectacular neckpiece in silver meant to keep the memory of her grandparents alive. Many pieces try to hold on to specific memories. Something that is in fact impossible, since memories fade and will change over the course of time. Despite the fact that jewellery is about objects intended to suggest durability and eternal value, this 2025 generation of artists strongly focusses on transient feelings and emotions. Feelings make everything fluid and we can recognize this in the Parfiltremoi-series of Jinrok Do. Gender identity is very important as well and we find some impressive examples of this in the exhibition. Only your body is something you really possess and something continuous during your life. Dua Fatima Baig makes monumental forms that have an archaic aura. Her pieces express a strong emotion and meaning, just like the jewellery of Chidimma Omeke. It reminds us of the symbolic imagery of the Stone Age. An imagery that can still be found in Nigerian culture. The ‘unfinished’ character of his layered materials point to the cycles of nature that are so important to all of humanity.

The social and political engagement of Nioosha Vaezzadeh Angoshtarzas, Susie Heuberger and Tsai Yi Chen is clear and passionate. Susie Heuberger treats the female body as the battleground of different stakeholders. A woman does not own her body in a society that knows an undercurrent of misogyny. Her accusation is impressive and not in the least because of her material-, form- and technical choices. Yi Chen in turn, reveals the subtle pressure of traditional bridal presents.

The identity theme really is very fertile and can be related to tradition, renewal, history, colonialism and psychological states of mind. What objects are, is also an important issue in the experience of nature. Our outdoor walks in a landscape, generally bring about mental balance and we admire the

manifold presence of nature in all sorts of details. Nature is impossible to control where here creative power is concerned and every small leaf has an individual form despite its embeddedness in a species. This philosophical and poetic approach defines the jewellery of Chun Chang who also enriches his beautiful and refined objects with a moral message.

Something totally different is the subject of colonialism and class-society that both create second-rate civilians. The rings of Poras Dhakan express his bottled-up rage in their explicit titles and forms. This work is not about beauty and seduction but about a personal indignation.

Another approach to the concept of identity is wondering about the essence of a human being and doubting whether it is mind or matter that counts as the primate of human creativity. Is it our idea or our intuitive, physical act that creates culture? Hannah Offermann and Guja Youssefi find their inspiration in masks and harnesses. It is not always visible from the outside what a person really represents. We hide a lot from each other.

The salt-sprinklers of Leo Wagner are a merry accent in the exhibition. They show typical and endearing details between the three tiny houses and mark a difference. Every designer and artist wants to make a difference. Also autobiographical elements inspire some to produce sensorial pieces of jewellery. Stress, fear and pain can block the development of an identity. In our times also social media can have a devastating effect on the vital energy of youngsters. This is what drives the work of Sarah May.

Also the problem of free will appears on the stage. Our subconscious is impossible to control and is rooted in a collective past. It is impossible to choose where and to whom we are born. Catharina Mohr and Marten Kueß both offer us their window onto the unconscious realm. Mohr imagines our homeostasis in colourful, felt necklaces. 

Asking who or what you are also invites to think about others and otherness.

This idea pops up in the pieces of Anna Hübner, Jeong Min Han and of Nadine Anklam. The latter produces jewellery that refers to the empathy we can feel. Nadine is a horse girl and everybody knows how deep the love for this animal can go. A love that is enclosed in how humans and animals look each other in the eye.

A very contrasting design attitude that ignores love, concludes that the arbitrariness of forms and decisions, proves that life is meaningless. Alexey Aghabeygi tortures himself with the emptiness of design. Still another approach to chance can be found in the monumental brooches of Yeoreum Lee. They are very convincing blue-prints of architectural bodies and analogous to our DNA as the two-dimensional code for our three-dimensional body.

Just like a cell, bodies have an inside and an outside. This is what the work of Yoojin Na represents: a beautiful sculptural world. The interaction between the linear frames and the volumes that hover in them, suggest growth and motion. That people are soft, elastic units that are stretched into their cultural matrix, is the subject of the beautifully made, big brooches of Won- Sang Yu. The transition from a flat surface into a volume, is a technique used by many artists. The fascinating brooches of Jeong Min Han look at you from the broken shell of an egg. The moment of birth is the beginning of a new, living being.

Also language is an identity-defining phenomenon and this is beautifully incorporated in the green-white book of jade that opens up its pages that shine with a pattern of pearls. The Shanzai Theory of Jiani Gu is an autonomous piece of art that communicates the deep meaning of language as a code of physical reality. The pencil lying in front of it, explains that this cultural code will never be completed.

Also the rings and the big necklace of Jinjin Zhang are intelligent objects that are convincing in all their simplicity and beauty. They also stir our feelings because they picture humans as creatures living in illusions. There is no bigger contrast than with the rings of Anastasiia Riabokon that scream extravagance and expensiveness. She searches for something real and affirms the idea that a ring means show-off and representation. Also Alex Kinsley Vey wants to communicate reality and even honesty by interpreting smoking, drinking, gambling and drug-use as a survival strategy. Vey does not believe in identity-loss but only in hedonism.

Marleen Wysocki tries to make three different identities tangible in her copper necklaces. The outside metal is scratched and the inside of the bowl-like shapes show a range of fluid colours. The two bowls also refer to their imaginary sound. The necklace of Carla Martín Bonay is composed of small tubes of tinkling glass, set in a flow of blue curly threads that seem to murmur softly. As an object it reflects softness and modesty.

Among these different design attitudes, the down-to-earth mentality we find in the Dutch contributions of Gitta Kumeling, Kim Heesakkers en Karel Haans stands out. They evade deeper waters in thinking about the identity concept. This is very much not the case in the pieces of Jung Ki Min who attributes a meditative function to her necklaces. Her medallions are made with the help of Artificial Intelligence and exhibit a very layered imagery. She sees them as vibrating portals that lead to a different dimension. But, what are they? Humanmade or computer-generated objects?

Even the search for God is implied in the identity concept. Do we resemble our Maker? The contributions of Avalon Palmer communicate spiritual and erotic aspects of religion. This ambiguity is also found in the leather jewellery boxes of Chenyang Han. They look like small coffins that seem to contain something alive.

This exhibition reveals the rich imagination of the designers and artists presented. We can witness a surprising variety of design-ideas and individual perspectives on reality. The identity concept clearly tells us that nothing is self-evident and that borders and frontiers in general are porous. Therefore, we can conclude that there is nothing unnatural to nature as there is nothing too strange in reality and in our imagination.

Margriet Hovens