In April this year, a challenge was launched for all the members of PIN – the Portuguese Association for Contemporary Jewellery –, encompassing individual members and schools, in order to prompt them to apply for the PINPARIS exhibition, whose curatorship was the responsibility of the jeweller and teacher Monika Brugger. Organized by PIN, under the umbrella of the event Parcours Bijoux, PINPARIS took place at Casa de Portugal – André de Gouveia, between September 23 and October 8.

PINPARIS gathered 33 artists of three generations and four nationalities (Portuguese, Brazilian, Colombian and French) with different affinities to Portugal and having, as a common denominator, the fact of being, or having been, members of PIN and, because of that, having taken part in the projects conducted since its inception, in one way or the other.

This exhibition introduced a new look over the landscape of contemporary jewellery in Portugal – a perspective which allowed to realize that such jewels are not exclusively Portuguese, but international as well. Whether that is related to the linguistic realm, or the nations historically connected to Portugal, the exhibition reflected as well the influences, the exchanges and the mutual enrichment that current artists are increasingly more exposed to.

Monika Brugger hopes that she has been capable of making these traits visible through the pieces she intends to share with the audience of Parcours Bijoux and Semaine des Cultures Etrangères, in Paris. The works exhibited either follow the challenge proposed by Brugger and had Paris as a starting point, or happen to be pieces which represent the path of some of the artists, paved over the last three decades.

An array of portraits showed the dialogue established with some photographers who opted in for a one-of-a-kind challenge – to portray people using jewels of PIN members. Portraits – memories of people with whom PIN crossed paths throughout its existence and, through them, the institutions that they represent. Penso, Jóias antibacterianas, conceived by Inês Nunes in 2007, was published in the supplement of the magazine Beaux Arts. In Francisco Aragão’s photography, a portrait of Elsa Garcia and Miguel Matos wearing the aforementioned pieces of the artist.

PIN – the Portuguese Association for Contemporary Jewellery is a non-profit cultural association established in Portugal in the year of 2004, which unfurls a work of promotion and potentization around national and international jewellery. Structured on multiple endeavours, PIN aims to create synergies in rather different contexts and moments and through the countless possibilities that a contemporary jewel suggests.

PINAPARIS was complemented by books, catalogues and videos on the activity of PIN since 2004, as well as of its members. These are the testimonials of an ongoing work and on the continuity of the key transformations, from the 60s to the present day, around this artistic subject.

The following jewellers were part of the exhibition: Ana Albuquerque, Frederica Bastide Duarte, Carolina Branco, Ana Campos, Márcia Cirne, Marta Costa Reis, Teresa Dantas, Catarina Dias / Inês Nunes, Inês Nunes, Tomaz Dionísio, Inês Esteves, Beatriz Faustino, Dulce Ferraz, Cristina Filipe, Filomeno Pereira de Sousa, Manuel Júlio, Teresa Milheiro, Marília Maria Mira, Miriam Mirna Korolkovas, Thyphaine le Monnier, Olga Noronha, Inês Nunes, Natália Olarte, Maria José Oliveira, Filomena Praça, Áurea Praga, João Ramos, Tereza Seabra, Carlos Silva, Catarina Silva, Tânia Simão Xavier, Inês Sobreira and Manuela Sousa.