December 2015
Click here: Handshake at Pah Homestead
13 September 2015
Jewellers’ international handshake (radio interview)
Originally aired on Standing Room Only, Sunday 13 September 2015
For almost two years, 11 emerging New Zealand contemporary jewellers have been mentored by big international names in jewellery. Now the work of mentors and mentees is being shown side by side for the first time. The Handshake project paired the Kiwi jewellers with their heros at the start of last year. They’ve collaborated using online video and email. So how did it work? Mentor David Neale from Melbourne, Australia, and Hastings jeweller Vanessa Arthur talk about their collaboration. Mentors & Mentees, is on at AVID Gallery in Wellington.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201770451/jewellers’-international-handshake
David Neale
Vanessa Arthur
12 September 2015
Jewellery across the miles by SARAH CATHERALL
Amelia Pascoe with works made out of old shoes.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/71864450/jewellery-across-the-miles
August 2015
HANDSHAKE project founder, Peter Deckers, unravels how the pairing of mentors and exhibitions accelerates selected New Zealand jewellery artists in their thinking, making, presentation and networking.
click here for the article published at KLIMT02
26 July 2015
12 July 2015
Wunderrūma: The Auckland Version
Three different Wunderrūma shows in three different locations with three different outcomes: Peter Deckers unpacks the first two quite different Wunderrūma exhibitions, one at Galerie Handwerk in Germany and one at The Dowse Art Museum in New Zealand, and ponders its third iteration in Auckland, opening mid-July.
Click here for more
14 August 2015
Carousel is a snapshot of this particular moment in contemporary jewellery and object. The exhibition frames eleven early career artists from Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, New Zealand and Thailand at a crucial point on their trajectory, between graduation and life as an established artist.
Click here to read more about this project that includes HSr Amelia Pascoe and other exiting news on the Radiant Pavilion festival (Melbourne’s Contemporary Jewellery and Object Trail 1-6 September 2015).
06 July 2015
KLIMT 02 article: HANDSHAKE project founder, Peter Deckers, unravels how the pairing of mentors and exhibitions accelerates selected New Zealand jewellery artists in their thinking, making, presentation and networking.
Click here for a full report on the pioneering journey of developing ‘leaders beyond dependency’.
10 May 2015
Art Jewellery Forum’s Susan Cummins recently interviewed Jude Carswell from AVID Gallery Wellington, with a few mentions for Handshake. Handshake2 opens 08 September 2015 at Avid
Click here for the article
28 April 2015
Handshake2 exhibiting at Vivien Atkinson’s gallery Salon Rouge as published on the front and back inside covers of the new AJF book Shows and Tales: On Jewelery Exhibition-Making put together by Benjamin Lignell.
Salon Rouge exhibition details:
2 April 2015
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click here: Radio New Zealand interview with Courtney Johnston about Ornament/artefact (Nine to Noon 22nd April)
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2 February 2015
1 January 2015
click here: Radio NZ interview with Courtney Johnston
About Moniek Schrijer exhibition at the Dowse Art museum (Summer Noelle, 1 January 2015).
18 November 2014
click here: HANDCRAFTED HEAVEN by Diana Dekker (Dominium Post)
Becky Bliss and Neke Moa (from Handshake1) are two of 60 from 600 international hopefuls who will show their work in Schmuck, an annual German exhibition seen as a take-off platform for contemporary jewellers. Schmuck 2015 will open, all serious sculptural gleam, in Munich, in March.
14 September 2014
click here: Radio interview: A Two Way Street – Handshake2 ( 13′ 50″ ) Originally aired on Standing Room Only, Sunday 14 September 2014
Gut instinct, intuition, and accessing the belly of creativity may sound a bit abstract, but according to Dutch contemporary jeweller Ruudt Peters it is here that the creative process begins. He has been paired up to mentor Wellington-based jeweller, Amelia Pascoe as part of Hand Shake Two, an online mentorship programme where selected mentees can develop their practice. So how does the online process work, and how valuable is mentorship in the development of our emerging artists? Sonia Sly investigates. Listen to that radio interview with Peter Deckers, Amelia Pascoe and her mentor Ruudt Peters!
30 June 2014: Pin-swap
21 June 2014
Salon Rouge
‘Salon Rouge’, a performance piece by Wellington jeweller and artist Vivien Atkinson, a mobile gallery in a coat.
All proceeds from sales will help to offset costs to mentees associated with participation in Handshake2. View the Salon Rouge pieces for sale HERE
Salon Rouge is now installed in the side window-gallery at AVID and is ‘resting’ there until Monday July 14th.
This performance piece is currently exhibiting new work from the Handshake2 participants and during this time will be making short tours into the Wellington community.
Have a look at it HERE
June 2014
WUNDERDINNER
In celebration of curators Warwick Freeman and Karl Fritsch and their international touring exhibition Wunderruma, the participants of Handshake2 will host a special thank you dinner at Juniper restaurant, to coincide with the opening of Wunderruma at The Dowse.
Come and celebrate with our guests of honour Warwick and Karl and meet the new handshakers at Juniper on Saturday the 21st June.
June 2014
Wunderrumma at The Dowse – Wundern: An Afternoon with the Wunderrūma Jewellers – Pubic event
Spend a special afternoon with the Wunderrūma jewellers, beginning with exhibition curators Warwick Freeman and Karl Fritsch discussing the making of Wunderrūma, followed by informal banter, encounters with their special guests in the exhibition space.
On top of this, between 2pm and 4pm be delighted by two jewellery performances Renee Bevan Necklace by Renee Bevan and Salon Rouge by Vivien Atkinson.
There will also be an opportunity to pick up the latest copy of Overview and go behind the scenes to spy some of The Dowse’s own jewellery collection at 2pm, 2.30pm and 3pm—numbers strictly limited to 8 per session.
See more via the Dowse’s website HERE
1 January 2015
click here: Radio NZ interview with Courtney Johnson about Moniek Schrijer exhibition at the Dowse Art museum (Summer Noelle, 1 January 2015).
17 November
click here: Handcrafted heaven by Diana Dekker (article in the Dominium Post, 17 November).
14 September 2014
click here: Radio interview: A Two Way Street – Handshake2 ( 13′ 50″ ) Originally aired on Standing Room Only, Sunday 14 September 2014
Mentoring is a two way street, and in the case of online mentorship programme – Handshake 2, which supports the development of our most talented contemporary jewellers, it is the mentor who must work for the mentee to help them to develop their ideas.
Netherlands-based Ruudt Peters is a man who continues to defy conventional thinking in his approach to art, object and contemporary jewellery— as a pioneer in his art form he would rather sit on the periphery and stay true to his own voice, rather than conform to tradition. In-keeping with his practice, when it comes to teaching, he leads his students through meditation and blind drawing to bring out an inner core and authenticity that is unique to the maker. For him, it’s not about making an object for the sake of beauty.
I hate beautiful…for me, jewellery is much more [it is] the content, the emotion, the way you wear it. You as a maker load the piece up, and the wearer loads the piece again. So you have a double loaded object.
Ruudt’s creative process and teaching methods are highly sought-after and have found their way into the heart of Wellington-based Amelia Pascoe whose own work straddles sculpture, object and adornment.
Pascoe has a Masters in Zoology and although she has made a departure from her previous work in biosecurity, it has provided a great deal of inspiration in her jewellery practice. One project completed though Whitireia Polytechnic’s Jewellery Design course, involved a series of pieces based on desire and trapping, where she likens the devices used to contain or constrain an animal – loops around the necks and pins that pierce the body, to the way in which we attach jewellery. The jewellery and objects that evolved from the project were ambiguous in form, with some containing an element of danger: “…a trap has to meet both the needs or desires of the trapper, but also the needs and desires of the thing you want to attract.”
Pascoe is hoping to gain much more freedom in her practice, and being mentored by a uniquely acclaimed international practitioner such as Ruudt Peters was as obvious choice. “I come from a science background and I know that I can get quite brain-heavy [so] the idea of working with someone who could help me develop other aspects of my work was quite appealing.”
Handshake2 is the brainchild of contemporary jeweller and educator Peter Deckers. It is an online mentorship programme which has been funded by Creative New Zealand. As part of the process a series of exhibitions will take place, showcasing the outcome of the mentor-mentee development. To find out more about handshake2 head to their website.
handshake2.com 
Wunderdinner was an energetic and well organised event by the HS2 mentees.
We all had enjoyed it.
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