"im-mà-gi-nà: The jewelry artists' works and their notebooks" is an international exhibition featuring artists from 24 different nations. Visitors to the Taipei branch of the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI) will be able to see the process of how one-dimensional sketches and notebook scribbles are transformed into proud, sculptural jewelry.
In Italian, "immagina" means "to imagine" — to conjure up ideas that do not follow fixed rules, by processing sensory experience without constraint. Imagination is the driving force behind all creative works. To quote Albert Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
When imagination unfolds in dimensions, artworks start to take shape. As artists create mental images, the pens and notebooks at hand become the most intuitive tools for expression. "Drawing is the first visible form in my works," German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys once said. "The changing point from the invisible powers to the visible thing."
On the manuscripts curated for the Taipei exhibition, visitors will find a wide range of ideas, notes, annotations, inspirations, and design languages that point to the artist’s working process from the ideational phase to concept refinement. The qualities of authenticity, readability, and sheer randomness of these manuscripts speak to their uniqueness in a digital era marred by copying-and-pasting.
"im-mà-gi-nà" will offer a behind-the-scenes take on the essential, but sometimes unexpected, steps taken by artists before finishing their works. Akin to seeing a marble sculpture before it is smoothed off to truly observe how the chisel was used, seeing the sketchbooks together with the finished works will help the viewer better understand the thought process, the quintessential imagination, of the featured artists.
Exhibition co-organizer, the Florence-based Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School, is one of the leading schools in Europe in this field since its establishment in 1998. For this special event taking place through May 31, 24 of the school's prominent international teachers and graduates will join the Taiwan exhibition to highlight the multifaceted approaches that now abound in contemporary jewelry and metalworking.
In the original curatorial vision, visitors would have been encouraged to flip through these manuscripts and notebooks. However, in line with the Ministry of Culture's coronavirus preventive measures, the exhibition has removed all its interactive elements to protect public health.
Participating artists (in alphabetical order):
Silvia Bonardi, YuChun Chen, Francesco Coda, Elisa Deval, Yu-Fang Hu, Meiri Ishida, Sayaka Ito, Anastasia Kandaraki, Sanaa Khalil, Marisa Leenutaphong, JunChang Lu, Lucia Massei, Carla Movia, Deema Murad, Evert Nijland, Sarah Ordóñez, Alessia Prati, Enrica Prazzoli, Yara Diaz Salles, Lucy Sarneel, Yanis Turcarelli, Gabi Veit, Robean Visschers, Shuang Yue
‘im-mà-gi-nà: The jewellery artists’ works and their notebooks’
Date: April 17 – May, 31, 2020
Hours: 9.30am – 5.30pm (Closed on Mondays)
Venue: 3F, NTCRI Taipei Branch
Address: No.41 Nanhai Rd., Zhongzheng Dist., Taipei, Taiwan (ROC)
Site: https://immagina2.webnode.tw/