This year, the second Lisbon International Biennial of Contemporary Jewellery, is already happening at venues all over the city of Lisbon. Even for contemporary artists, designers or architects, it is difficult to imagine how distinct contemporary jewellery is, a world of discovery, unexpected technical ingenuity, the use of alternative materials, and pieces that are sometimes practically impossible to wear. But they are not created to simply accessorize you. They are created to speak, declare, manifest, and shout out loud that jewellery in the 21^st century should not witlessly decorate its wearers and compete with each other in the purity of diamond or carat count. Today, in an age of global problems, humanitarian catastrophes worldwide, political conflicts, environmental crises, and increased focus on post-humanist ideas, we do not have the luxury of remaining silent about this. Jewellery becomes a tool for reflection, and tackling current problems.

Each Biennale is given a theme. In its first edition in 2021, the Biennale was called Cold Sweat, reflecting on the consequences and impact of the pandemic.

This time, the Biennale is entitled Madrugada (Dawn) and is dedicated to jewellery with a political message. The event’s theme focuses on hope and belief in the dawning of a brand new day, referencing events of 50 years ago in Portugal when the revolution broke out and radically changed the country’s course. In more than 20 exhibitions throughout the city, a colloquium with industry stars, writers, and contemporary jewellery theorists from around the world — free rein was given to voices on the various aspects and consequences of politics: power, strength, manipulation, emigration, oppression, hierarchy, inequality, to name a few.

One of the main exhibitions, Jewellery for Democracy, is dedicated to the role of women in establishing democracy. Held at the Royal Treasure Museum in Ajuda, it was a tribute to women from different countries and professions, an homage in jewellery form to 44 specific women, from Austria’s first Minister for Women’s Affairs to the mothers and grandmothers of the jewellery designers themselves. Who among us has heard of Catarina Eufémia, a farmworker from Alentejo, killed at 26 during a workers’ strike in 1954? Are we aware of the courage of Clarice Herzog, who sued the Brazilian state for the murder of her husband, journalist Vladimir Herzog, during the military dictatorship in 1975? The exhibition can be endlessly explored, and it far surpasses any straightforward history lesson on women’s rights and their heroism.

Another major exhibition is Madrugada. It is both a kaleidoscopic overview of jewellery from around the world and a clearly set-out narrative split into several different chapters, such as To Repair (Memory), To Protest (Voices), To Transit (Boundaries), etc.

Jewellery, objects, and miniature furniture model pieces made from rice and copper by Clementine Edwards explore the relationship between humans and these materials. Rice and copper as resources, and memory keepers – how we can use them more carefully? A traditional Russian doll, the Matryoshka, which can hold up to 50 smaller replicas of itself, was wittily staged as a BDSM ball (Matruoshka) in Anna Avits’ work.

A whole room of Madrugada is dedicated to Vivi Touloumidi’s impressive and terrifyingly rich documentational research on how the Nazis during WWII went about categorising people they considered “strange”, and “other”. Each “caste”, from homosexuals to antisocial individuals, had its own designations and insignia developed by Nazi bureaucrats, subsequently tweaked all the way up to the highest ranks, including by Himmler himself. Vivi’s research, ongoing for several years now, explores the power of an insignia not as a piece of jewellery but as a stamp, a stigma, and its role in human oppression.

The Madrugada exhibition, featuring the work of almost 100 artists, takes place in the Palace of the Counts of Calheta till September 22^nd.

In addition to the main programme, the Biennale features many parallel events organised by groups of jewellers, schools, and associations. One such exhibition is Radical Softness on the work of Estonian jewellers. “We will use softness to melt rigidity, dissolving power struggles into empathy,” says the exhibition curator, Tanel Veenre. Tanel draws a parallel between a kind of Christian capacity for acceptance and empathy and the physical phenomenon where material can become deformed under certain forces but then return to its original state. Are people of opposing nationalities and cultures so different? Where is this thin line between acceptance and non-acceptance of someone from another culture or environment drawn? Do the concepts of different mentalities, and geographical determinism exist at all? The project – exhibited inside a church – raises serious and very relevant questions.

The fact that several exhibitions were held in churches is an intriguing one. What prompted this choice? Are we hoping that higher powers will make our decisions for us? Or do jewellers want to break away from the stereotype of the conservatism of the church as an institution? In any case, the contrast of Baroque architecture, the atmosphere of the Eucharist celebration, and bold, rebellious statements is an effective curatorial approach, without a doubt. For example, works by students of the Class of Jewellery & Hollowware from the Academy of Fine Arts Munich were displayed in the Nossa Senhora de Oliveira Church: the jewels were hid under a desk covered with a tablecloth, so visitors had to sit on the floor and look under the dense fabric to find the “treasures”.

The Biennale’s main theme of Hope was excellently illustrated by participants in the masterclass Hope led by the jeweller and lecturer at Central Saint Martins, Lin Cheung. These were days of hard, focused work, from dialogues to research, reflections and practice. What gives us hope, hopeful, and hopeless feelings? Working with materials randomly placed in bags by Lin (the bags contained broken and new items, and slightly used ones sourced from various jewellers), workshop participants breathed new life, a sort of a hope, into these materials. The result of the workshop was a series of artistic jewellery tools to help people cope with the things that irritate them. Not such abstract concepts as war, hunger and oppression, but phenomena that we struggle with in our everyday lives and can do something about: garbage in the streets, people cutting in line, overly loud conversations in public places… The results of this research project were shown at Ar.Co.

As with all large-scale events, the Lisbon Biennial’s theme was determined in advance, as far back as before 2022. Great is the curatorial skill of predicting a relevant topic. Unfortunately, the theme of politics and hope turned out to be a very timely one, today. Celebrating the victory of democracy in Portugal 50 years ago and, in general, the democratic values of Europe which the European Union has fostered for over 30 years, can we feel safe today? The full-scale invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, the transfer of power to the right in Europe… Looking at the rays of the sun as it bathes the land today, do we know if it is a sunrise (madrugada) or a sunset (pôr do sol)?