What is contemporary jewellery? What does it mean for different cultures? Does it really have the powerful force that helps to shape our attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviours? How important is it to reach a consensus on its definition? Is it necessary to redefine the way contemporary jewellery is shown, perceived and consumed? Who produces contemporary jewellery? Is it able to reflect a culturally diverse society? How are our notions of space and identity being challenged by globalization? Is the international jewellery scene so international after all? What is being done on both sides of the ocean? What do we know about each other? What can we learn about each other? Can we make it more accessible to a broader audience? Is it possible to share each other’s markets? How can we set the basis for a refreshing and enriching dialogue between jewellery makers from both continents?

With all these on mind, the Otro Diseño, Foundation for Cultural Exchange and Development, Design Flux and Ex Teresa Arte Actual, join efforts with an array of international organizations and companies bring together artists, designers, jewellery makers, academics, researchers and promoters from Latin America and Europe on a stage that stimulates friendly, creative, and engaging discussions, able to create an interdisciplinary frame of reference for contemporary jewellery and its practices within a truly multinational discourse.

From April 12th to 16th 2010, the symposium Gray Area will take place in the magnificent conference room of Ex Teresa Arte Actual, in Mexico City’s Historic Center. The symposium will be complemented by a series of parallel exhibitions and events.

The symposium is open for emerging and established jewellery makers and artists, students from the design, art and jewellery academies, art historians and critics, scholars from the arts, craft and design disciplines, museum and gallery members, art and jewellery collectors, public interested in the subject. 
Participants from all over the world are welcomed to attend. 

>> Registration will be available online as from January 2010 here

Language: English and Spanish (simultaneous translation) 

Symposium fee: $3000 Mexican Pesos for participants from Latin American countries. € 250 Euros for participants of any other countries.

Fee includes: Attendance to all conferences and round tables. Symposium working package. Coffee and refreshments. Invitation to the openings of all exhibitions. Presentation of the documentary: The City where Women Are Disposable

Registration will close on February 28th 2010.

Important Please note that due to the large amount of registration enquiries we will apply a strict first-registered, first-served policy. 

>> Registration will be available online as from January 2010 here

Gray Area will bring together approximately fifty speakers from Latin America and Europe. The multidisciplinary panel includes jewellery makers, graduate students, art critics, art historians, gallery managers, collectors, and speakers from other disciplines relevant to topics to be addresses. They have been invited on the basis of their affinities, but also on the tensions between their discourses and practices in order to create a stimulating and challenging discussion that leads to the exchange of ideas and the proposal of future joint projects. Panel and audience will interact through a series of lectures, dialogues and round tables.
The symposium program is still in development. It will be periodically updated to include the final lecture titles and the names of participant lecturers.

You can view the program here 

Some of the confirmed lecturers are:
ANDREA WAGNER (Germany/NL) Jewellery maker
ANDRES FONSECA ( Colombia/Mexico) Visual artist and jewellery maker. Director of Research in Jewellery, at the Industrial Design Research Centre of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
BENJAMIN LIGNEL (France) Designer, jewellery maker and independent critic.
CAROLINE BROADHEAD (UK) Visual artist and art critic.
DR. CLEMENZIA PLAZAS (Colombia) Archaeologist and anthropologist, freelance writer. Ex-director of the Gold Museum, Bogota.
CRISTINA FILIPE (Portugal) Jewellery maker and director of the Portuguese Association for Contemporary Jewellery.
DAMIAN SKINNER ( New Zealand) Freelance art historian and curator.
ESTELA SAEZ ( Spain / NL) Jewellery maker
FELIEKE VAN DER LEEST (NL/Norway) Jewellery maker
FRANCISCA KWEITEL (Argentina) Jewellery maker
GIO CARBONE (Italy) Jewelery make founder of Le Arti Orafe International School of Jewellery and Design in Florence and of the annual exhibition Lucca Preziosa
JAMES BEIGHTON (UK) Curator at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA)
JORGE MANILLA (Mexico/Belgium) Jewellery maker
JOSÉ MANUEL SPRINGER (Mexico) Art critic and editor of magazine Replica 21
LIESBETH DEN BESTEN (NL) Art critic and journalist, president of the Francoise Van den Bosch Foundation.
MANON VAN KOUSIJK (NL) Jewellery maker and head of the Jewellery Department at the Rietveld Academy.
MARINA MOLINELLI (Argentina) Jewellery maker.
MARLEN PILOTO (Cuba) Visual artist, head of the goldsmiths department of the National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro, Habana; member of the organizing committee of the Havana Art Biennale.
MARTHA HRYCMAN (Poland-Mexico) Jewellery maker
MIGUEL LUCIANO ( Puerto Rico-USA) Visual maker
MIRLA FERNANDES (Brazil) Biochemist and jewellery maker
MONICA GASPAR (Spain) Art historian, freelance curator and writer
NANNA MELLAND (Norway) Jewellery maker
NURIA CARULLA (Colombia) Jewellery maker
RAMON PUIG CUYAS (Spain) Jewellery maker, head of the Jewellery department at the Massana School, Barcelona.
RAUL YBARRA Biologist, jewellery artist and researcher, expert in pre-Columbian jewellery techniques. 

Associated Exhibitions
Walking the Gray Area
40 artists from Europe and Latin America in a dialogue about migration, identities.
Galery La Refaccionaria, Mexico City

Ultrabarroco
Cristina Filipe (Portugal) & Heleno Bernardi (Brazil), Eugenia Martinez (Mexico) & Estela Saez (Spain) and Benjamin Lignel (France) & Alex Burke (Martinique) discuss the infuences and tenssions that permeate the relations between ex-colonies and ex-colonizers.
Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City

EncuentrosDesencuentros
Estela Saez Vilanova (Spain) & Francisca Kewitel (Argentina)
Casa Vecina, Mexico City

Marthyrs Everywhere
Jorge Manilla (Mexico/Beligum) & Martha Hrycman (Poland/Mexico)
Casa Vecina, Mexico City

A Nadie le Amarga…
Felieke van der Leest (NL) & Laura de Alba
Dulceria de Celaya, Mexico City

First We Quake Now We Shake
Ela Bauer (NL), Karin Seufert (NL), Manon Van Kouswijk (NL), Volker Atrops (Germany), Karl Fritsch (Germany), Norman Weber (Germany), Teruo Akatsu (japan)
Gallery 100m3, Mexico City

Momentopia
Jiro Kamata
Galeria Mexicana de Diseno, Mexico City

Shmuck Quickies
Yuka Oyama
El Gran Leon Ballroom, Mexico City 

The Gray Area Gris is an international symposium on contemporary jewellery, to take place by the first time in Latin America. Presenting specialist on the matter from all over the world and focusing on the exchange of perspectives between Europe and Latin America, the symposium will encompass a series of lectures, exhibitions and workshops and will take place in Mexico City next April 12th to 16th 2006.

The great interest of the audience on this symposium had us fully booked in a matter of weeks. The symposium will receive participants from 31 countries and 5 continents. But thanks to great interest of the public and to the generosity of our hosting institution Ex Teresa Arte Actual, we are glad to offer 50 extra seats for the Gray Area Gris Symposium Mexico 2010.

Registration will be available online as from January 2010 here

We will process registration forms in a strict first-come, first-served basis.