Final exhibition at Academy of Precious Metal Arts

For her final exam, Diana Holstein chose to work with the concept of the divine and the earthly. She wrote in her thesis:
I have always been fascinated by existentialistic questions such as “why do we exist” and “how do we exist”, “where do we come from” and “where do we go from here”. It is like a search for the meaning of life. In order to define a clear and simple approach to the topic, I decided to work around the principle of contrast – light and darkness – and the graphical symbols circle and square.

For the exhibition A Girl’s Best Friend the design collective byUs was inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s famous song. However, Hanan Emquies found chocolate not diamonds (!) to be a woman’s best friend. The explanation is simple:

“I attended a dinner party at a friend’s house with several people I didn’t know. After a delicious meal, we moved into the soft chairs, had coffee – and the conversation totally stopped…

In the event of Hand Christian Andersen’s 200th anniversary in 2005, byUs staged a jewellery exhibition evolving around the famous poet’s life and fairy tales. For the exhibition, Hanan Emquies chose the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” thus creating a collection of silver and gold jewellery each with a small gold ball or pearl hidden inside the creases of the metal.

For the exhibition and his final exam at Academy of Precious Metal Arts in 2004, Hanan Emquies chose to investigate the common notion of the ring, asking himself questions about the way we traditionally perceive the ring today. The ring is per se defined as a circular shape with a hole to be placed and kept at the finger.