Helen Habtay M.F.A.

"I will start with an excerpt of my Project Proposal, the springboard of my master studies:

“What am I trying to find out? Why?
Purpose of this project is to analyse two issues. Firstly, the revisit of the meanings culture and style along with semiotic signs and those new meanings. Secondly, to reveal my role as a maker. I am aware of not being part of the big branding culture. I see myself as a jeweller with a socio political awareness and use the knowledge of culture as a source of inspiration for new works. That implies fusing theory and practice as well as working interdisciplinary and in collaborations.”

My project proposal as well as my bachelor work are based on identifying my environment, things around me and how to evaluate what I sense and make. Through dealing with gemstones here, I realised that I was more and more focused on the value of materials and their ability to communicate rather than rigid semiotic signs.

Working with the material stone, forming and shaping it made me aware of how much a thing can have biography and a handwriting before even touching it. What fascinates me about material culture as a multidisciplinary field is that it is a contemporary research about our cultural life as posts and neos. The way things are in relation to their persons or how we define and redefine ourselves and our objects. Therefore, I stress the importance of the way we perceive information through experience and exchange."

www.helenhabtay.com