Marta Costa Reis, Mónica Gaspar, and Patrícia Domingues, eds., Madrugada: A joalharia e a politika da Esperança (Daybreak: Jewellery and the Politics of Hope). Lisbon: PIN – Portuguese Association of Contemporary Jewellery and CML/MUDE Museu do Design, 2025. (In Portuguese/English)
As the 3rd Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial, organized by the PIN – Portuguese Association for Contemporary Jewellery, approaches its launch for a run from September 19 to 27, 2026, the global contemporary craft community continues to digest the profound impact of its predecessor. This year’s biennial theme, Coexistences, finds its direct intellectual lineage in the final section of the landmark 2024 biennial exhibition, Madrugada. A careful review of the newly published Madrugada catalog reveals the complex web of socio-political ideas, historical commemorations, and material inquiries that originally sparked the concept of coexistence.
The Portuguese word madrugada translates to "daybreak," a gentle yet evocative term for the dawn of a new day. Madrugada. Jewellery and the Politics of Hope served as the foundational anchor of Lisbon’s second contemporary jewelry biennial. The exhibition brought together a diverse, sprawling selection of political works—some operating through quiet, contemplative gestures, others through intense, acute urgency—united by a steadfast determination to inspire hope amidst global turbulence.
Marking the 50th anniversary of Portugal’s historic 1974 Carnation Revolution, curators Marta Costa Reis, Mónica Gaspar, and Patrícia Domingues conceived a project that felt deeply rooted in the memory of liberation. In close collaboration with MUDE – Museu do Design, the city’s premier institution for contemporary design and jewelry, the curatorial team took over the vacant, atmospheric halls of the Calheta Palace to stage the exhibition.
A Global Response to Contemporary Crises
The exhibition featured works by 90 jewelers hailing from 34 countries, collectively addressing a vast spectrum of societal fractures. From injustices faced by migrants and the pervasive harm of restrictive beauty standards to the alarming global deterioration of queer rights, the scope was breathtaking. The hope invoked by the exhibition’s subtitle is not a passive, naive optimism, nor is it a paralyzing pessimism. Instead, it represents an enduring stance that stares uncertainty squarely in the face while keeping hands free to get to work. The curators consciously sought out objects that carried both the immediate, fiery sting of rage and this grounded, resilient brand of hope.
For visitors navigating the expansive rooms of the Calheta Palace, however, engaging with the objects presented a unique intellectual challenge. The curators made the deliberate decision to accompany the works on view with only the sparest of labels, restricting visible information to basic identifiers such as the maker’s name, piece title, and materials used.
This minimalist approach transformed viewing into an active pursuit. Touring the exhibition alongside the curators and participating artists offered vital keys to unlock the works. For instance, Nanna Melland illuminated the conceptual swarm behind her aluminum planes, while Johanna Zellweger grounded her passport piece in personal narratives of migration. Later, Susie Heuberger revealed that the striking pinkish-red crosses in her neckpiece Hermanas were created to commemorate Mexican women killed in ongoing conflicts.
While encountering familiar pieces—such as Ana Escobar Saavedra’s stone replica of a maternity ward baby identification band, which marks the very beginning of institutional identity construction—brought a familiar sense of recognition, many works introduced unfamiliar perspectives. By deliberately challenging their own blind spots, the curators brought forward young and underrepresented voices to showcase how a new generation reacts to systemic crises.
Curatorial Actions and the Afterlife of Exhibition
To structure this massive influx of ideas, the curators organized the works into eight thematic, action-oriented categories, including "To protest (voices)," "To empower (tools)," and "To reimagine (coexistences)." Each section was introduced via a mini-essay. While these texts proved somewhat challenging to read on transparent display panels within the historical Calheta Palace, they can now be fully savored within the pages of the catalog.
The publication, identifiable by its striking yellow cover, functions as a deliberate act of curatorial care, tending to the exhibition’s afterlife long after the objects have been returned to their makers. Nearly all the images featured in the book were captured in situ, documenting how temporary scaffolding wound its way through the palace’s soaring rooms and narrow corridors. Close-up photography of pieces resting inside glass display cases captures the atmospheric haze cast by the dominant yellow partitions.
During their presentation at the AJF talk during Schmuck 2025, Gaspar and Domingues emphasized that the catalog itself serves as a vessel of care, designed to keep the project’s central ideas active in public discourse. In an interview with art critic Elena Karpilova included in the volume, the curators explained their choice to avoid overwhelming visitors with exhaustive text manuals. Instead, they opted to provide a select few QR codes, hoping to spark natural curiosity and encourage self-initiated micro-research. While this minimalist stance carried the inherent risk that certain works might be misunderstood, it prioritized an unmediated visual encounter.
Navigating the Absence of Labels
The catalog provides slightly more breathing room than the exhibition itself, carefully listing materials and dimensions while occasionally offering artist quotes and background context. For example, Auli Laitinen’s Nobel Bow gains profound resonance when understood in relation to the former secretary of the Swedish Academy, who wore similar bows before her tenure was cut short to dodge #MeToo-related controversies. Wearing such a piece carries genuine weight at a time when political authorities globally increasingly penalize "subversive" accessories, ranging from explicit political pins to symbolic watermelon brooches expressing solidarity with Palestine.
Similarly, examining Paula Crespo’s necklace Fora de Série—housed within the section "To repair (memory)"—prompts immediate questions regarding its round wooden disks. A check of the catalog’s back index reveals the materials: African wood and 1-escudo coins, quietly alluding to the complex legacies of timber extraction in former Portuguese colonies. Operating without the crutch of explanatory wall labels induced a specific kind of productive unease, forcing viewers to question whether this gatekeeping was restrictive or, conversely, liberating enough to allow them to look with truly unconditioned eyes.
This tension between text and object repeats across multiple works. Clementine Edwards’s installation Rice and Copperland prompts questions about the choice of miniature scale, rice, and copper. The catalog resolves this by quoting the artist: "How to challenge histories of extraction and dispossession? I like to start small, thinking about an artwork that resists ever being finished." Likewise, Conversation Piece’s ammonite-like pendant Black Box acquires deeper meaning when contextualized through quotes addressing technological obsolescence, overconsumption, and conflict minerals.
Jewelry as an Instrument of Protest
The publication bypasses any lingering debate over whether jewelry is a suitable medium for political protest or hope, taking its capacity for social commentary as a given. Nearly halfway through, the volume cites Timothy Information Limited: "At its most useless, political jewellery is merely a tourist to, or a souvenir from, the land of human ideas. Can it be useful? Can it shout? Can it do? I hope so?"
This utility manifests in various ways: through alarming critiques, through utopian sketches of human and non-human coexistence—such as in Countercurrent Collective’s film Stork Fiction—or through active interventions. Patrícia Domingues has noted that dystopia can function as a "methodology" in its own right, acknowledging complex realities while creating intellectual space to imagine alternatives. Meanwhile, collectives like Makers Move (Josephine Winther and Gitte Nygaard) demonstrate hope in its most active form by inviting passers-by in the streets of Lisbon to manually shape wire into jewelry centered on the concept of freedom.
The inclusion of text-based works, such as Helen Britton’s painting Shame Australia Shame—which boldly proclaims "stupid ignorant heartless moronic humans" in tusche and acrylic on paper—highlights how graphic urgency can disrupt the rhythmic cadence of brooches, bracelets, and pendants. By integrating two-dimensional works, videos, and installations, the exhibition questioned whether clear language is increasingly overtaking traditional forms of jewelry as a vehicle for direct indictment. Yet, ambiguous text-based pieces also find a home here, from Timothy Information Limited’s "Blah Blah Blah" protest sign badge to Auli Laitinen’s readymade "I am human" name tags categorized under "To reimagine (coexistences)."
Ultimately, Madrugada and its accompanying catalog do not offer simple answers. Instead, they map out eight distinct thematic actions showing how political jewelry can "do" the work of critique, boundary-crossing, and self-actualization. By honestly confronting curatorial dilemmas regarding text, labels, and viewer comprehension, the project serves as both a vital record of contemporary political craft and an ongoing inquiry into the power of words within the medium. As the contemporary jewelry world prepares for the 3rd Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial under the banner of Coexistences, the intellectual foundation laid by Madrugada remains an essential benchmark for socially engaged art.
Madrugada ran as an exhibition from June 28 to September 22, 2024, curated by Marta Costa Reis, Patrícia Domingues, and Mónica Gaspar.
Participating artists:
Ada Chen, Adeela Suleman, Alice Floriano, Ana Escobar Saavedra, Anna Avits, Anti War Medal exhibition archive (Velvet da Vinci Gallery), Artificial Intelligems, Auli Laitinen, Benedict Haener, Ben Lignel, Beverley Price, Bruno Nogueira, Carla Castiajo, Caroline Broadhead, Catarina Silva, Catherine Blackburn, Chequita Nahar, Christoph Zellweger, Clementine Edwards, Conversation Piece (Nicolas Cheng & Beatrice Brovia), Corrina Goutos, Countercurrent Collective, Damara Inglês, Daniel Ramos, David Bielander, Deganit Stern Stocken, Diana Silva, Eija Mustonen, Felieke van der Leest, Fernanda Fragateiro / Paula Paour, Filomeno Pereira de Sousa, Florance Tebbutt, Frank Tjepkema, Gemma Draper, Geraldine Fenn, Gisbert Stach, Gonçalo Camboa, Handmedal Project (Iris Eichenberg & Jimena Rios), Helen Britton, Kiseno, Johanna Dahm, Johanna Zellmer, Jonathan Boyd, José Aurélio, Joyce J Scott, La Frontera exhibition archive (Velvet da Vinci Gallery & Lorena Lazard), Lauren Kalman, Lauren Kalman & Kipp Bradford, Leonie Damm, Leonor Hipolito, Lin Cheung, Lisa Walker, Lucie Davis, Lucy Ganley, Luisa Kuschel, Luis Torres, Makers Move, Manuel Vilhena, Maria Ignacia Walker, Marilia Maria Mira, Masoumeh Rezaeilouyeh, Matt Lambert, Mengyin Sun, Miles Robinson, Naama Levit, Nanna Melland, Nedda Al-Asmar, Paul Derrez, Pride Power Project (Paul Derrez & Misja Beijers), Paula Crespo, Paulo Mendes, Pedro Sequeira, Pio Abad & Frances Wadsworth Jones, Pouya Bakhshi, Ramon Puig Cuyàs, Reka Lorincz, Ruudt Peters, Samantha Vincent, Sophie Hanagarth, Susie Heuberger, Ted Noten, Teresa Milheiro, Timothy Information Limited, Timothy Veske-McMahon, Valerie Oi Ying Ho, Vhils, Viktoria Bulgakova, Vivi Touloumidi, Yotam Bahat.
