06/09/2026
KORU9 Open Call – Traces of Labour
Work arises from contemporary jewellery art itself. Work is activity that produces, maintains, transforms, or sustains something: materially, socially, or symbolically. Work is as timeless and global a theme as jewellery – life is structured around work. Jewellery and work are connected as builders and expressions of identity: both carry values, stories, and meanings that are tied to a person’s life and their place within a community. Jewellery allows its wearer to make inner experiences, personal histories, and a sense of belonging to specific groups or traditions visible. Similarly, work shapes identity both through concrete skills and achievements and as part of a broader social and cultural system of meaning.
Work enables and generates new possibilities, but it also provides a lens through which issues of equality and inequality can be examined. Many societal injustices are closely linked to working life. Social class, gender equality, the concentration of wealth, children’s rights, and modern slavery are all themes that jewellery artists may address, for example by drawing parallels with the Western history of jewellery. The challenges of contemporary society related to sustainability, acceleration, and consumption are likewise reflected in working life.
Work is often understood as physical labour, yet intellectual and meta-work frequently remain invisible, even though psychological labour, such as emotional work, is now more widely recognised. Work can also be performed by non-human actors, including machines, artificial intelligence, and the natural world as a whole. Various tools, instruments, protective equipment, workwear, insignia and badges, the objects and items that workers carry and wear, resemble jewellery in their symbolism and function. Yet jewellery and adornment are rarely seen as a central part of work. Between jewellery and work there are as many points of connection as there are differences and contradictions.
🔴 The open call for the KORU9 exhibition is open. Submit your application by 15 November 2026. For detailed application guidelines and submission information, visit the KORU9 website: https://www.koru9.fi/opencall-koru9-
