We reuse materials and objects trying not to be nostalgic, to emphasize the mixture, in order to create jewels to be worn. Instead of traditional jewelry techniques we work assembling different elements using wire and threads, closer to the idea of provisory rather than eternal.

This project begun out of the interest of designing and creating new objects from collected, inherited and found objects, in the context of a huge economical crisis in Argentina in December 2001. Working only with material available in the surroundings became the starting point of the creative process, using discarded things to comment on the cultural world where we come from. Recovering and transforming objects into jewels carries many references to this world, through the process of recombining and recontextualizing objects, images, techiques and ideas.

Recycling for us involves notions of assambling, recombining, including chance, serendipity, mistakes, failures, improvisation, fragmentary and hybrid. It expresses the limitation of resources through the creation of new meanings with unlimited posibilities.

As a team of two people working together, we also deal with issues of collaboration and authorship in the creative process, that we see connected with the ideas of assambling, collaging and mixing, so related to our cultural background.

Marcela Muñiz (1959) earned a degree in Architecture at the University of Buenos Aires in 1983. She also studied set design at the Teatro Colón Institute (Buenos Aires), and furniture design at the University of Buenos Aires. She has worked in the fields of interior design and commercial architecture.
Her current interest lies in translating her background in tridimensional design into the making of meaningful objects related to her own history and experience, working with the materials she has at hand. In 2005 she was an invited artist at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (Germany).

Valeria Hasse (1963) studied Graphic Design at the University of Buenos Aires and has completed a post-graduate in Design at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht (Netherlands) with an UNESCO grant.
Her main focus lies in close collaborations with artists, designers, curators and theorists. Her work has a wide range of formats from exhibitions, publications, set design to jewelry design. She has a regular output of self-initiated projects including clothing, exhibitions, prints, events and jewelry. She was artist-in-Residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (2004-2005).

Solo exhibitions:
2007 Vitrine - Gallery V&V - Vienna
2005 Found in a box - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart
2004 Urban garden - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart

Group exhibitions (selected):
2009 Schmuck 09 - RMIT Gallery -Melbourne | 2nd Sustainable Design Festival. Buenos Aires | Alternatives in Textile Jewelry - X Gallery – Bratislava | Schmuck 09. International Trade Fair Exhibition, Munich | Challenging the Chatelaine - Philadelphia Art Alliance.
2008/2009 Challenging the Chatelaine - Künstlerhaus, Vienna.
2008 1st Sustainable Design Festival. Buenos Aires | Integrando al Futuro. Centro Metropolitano de Diseño. Buenos Aires | Challenging the Chatelaine - Stedelijk Museum’s-Hertogenbosch | Challenging the Chatelaine - Design Museum, Ghent | Contemporary Jewelry – Galeria Arte y Parte - Buenos Aires
2007 Challenging the Chatelaine - Museum of Art and Design, Tallinn | Challenging the Chatelaine - Lalaounis Jawelry Museum, Athens | Zoom - Pasarela Santiago - Santiago de Chile
2006 Zoom - Festival de Diseño de Buenos Aires | 2006/2007 Challenging the Chatelaine - Design Museum - Helsinki
2005 RE-CY I - Gallery V&V - Vienna
2004 Shift! Re-appropietated - Berlin
2003 Monserrat Arte & Moda - Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes - Buenos Aires

Lectures & workshops:
2009 Fashion Lab: Workshop about recycled jewelry - Facultad de Diseño y Comunicación – Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires | Workshop about recycling for kids from 5 to 8 years old. Maria Montessori Grandschule Hausen. Stuttgart.
2008 Recycled jewelry - Lecture. Festival Diseño Sustentable. Jardín Botánico, Buenos Aires.
2005 Workshop about recycling for students of the Pforzheim Design Academy - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart

Fashion shows:
2009 Paper Fashion Show – DArA, Buenos Aires.
2008 Buenos Aires Fashion Week
2007 Buenos Aires Fashion Week
2003 Buenos Aires Alta Moda

Gallery V&V – Vienna
Metalistería – Buenos Aires (www.metalisteria.com.ar)