{"id":18015,"date":"2019-08-01T20:41:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T18:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.amber.com.pl\/poznawanie-swiata-poprzez-bizuterie-rozmowa-z-maria-magdalena-kwiatkiewicz\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T11:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T10:57:00","slug":"exploring-the-world-through-jewellery-interview-with-maria-magdalena-kwiatkiewicz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/aktualnosci\/poznawanie-swiata-poprzez-bizuterie-rozmowa-z-maria-magdalena-kwiatkiewicz\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovering the world through jewellery - interview with Maria Magdalena Kwiatkiewicz"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is so great about jewellery that makes it so important to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I like most about jewellery is that it is so ambiguous: it can tell us a great deal about a person. Jewellery emphasises the status of its owner, it is handed down from generation to generation, it transmits emotions, it is an important element underlining our individuality and distinguishing us from others, it can also be an amulet protecting us from evil powers... All these elements are particularly important in tribal structures - there they serve above all to emphasise one's position in the community. In our culture, on the other hand, jewellery is first and foremost an ornament, but at the same time it also carries a message - a message about us sent to everyone we meet. This message is received subconsciously - no specialist knowledge or cultural background is necessary. I prefer to wear a black dress and to match it with magnificent jewellery created by Polish artists. Good design and artistic values are the most important thing for me - this is also the message my jewellery sends out about me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How strongly are you guided by jewellery when planning your next trips?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When choosing my travel destinations, jewellery plays a very important role, but the most important thing for me is definitely the people - their culture and lifestyle. As part of my preparations, I read as much as possible about the country or tribe in question, while on the spot I try to visit museums to better understand the culture and decipher the codes contained in the jewellery. I plan my trips at times when there are festivals - people come dressed in festive attire, and this always involves wearing festive jewellery. For me, this is a unique opportunity to see this jewellery, photograph it and perhaps also purchase it. The circumstances of purchase are varied. In Cameroon, for example, I saw fantastic necklaces in a museum and of course I wanted to acquire them for my collection. I searched for them at the market, showing the vendors a particular picture in a book. One of them disappeared with my book for a long quarter of an hour and returned with two impressive necklaces. One smaller one with hunting warriors and the other larger one with animal skulls - I unfortunately only bought one because the other one was so big it wouldn't fit in my backpack on the way back to Poland.
I dream of visiting the Naga tribe living on the border between Assam and Myanmar - obviously also because of the jewellery, which is extremely fascinating, made from shells, metal and bone, among other things. It is currently dangerous in this region, so I am waiting for the situation to calm down. I would so much like to get to places where not too many people from our civilisation have arrived yet, and people live there as they did a hundred or two hundred years ago. Time is short, the world is globalising very fast - even at the ends of the world you can eat at McDonald's....<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you managed to source most of the jewellery you wanted most?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the pieces that fascinated me or represent important jewellery documentation, I have in my collection. However, far from all of them - for reasons of transport limitations or because their owners were so attached to them that they would not sell them for anything. Recently, in Mustang, where women wear a headdress very similar to the perak worn in Ladakh - also decorated with turquoise, coral, amber and silver - I attended a huge festival where it was difficult to take photos. The women are so protective of their image that they cover their heads even during the festival. I didn't manage to buy the ornaments, but I still have hope - two middlemen offered their services....<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a piece of jewellery you wouldn't want to have in your collection?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Men of the Korowai tribe wear necklaces made from the teeth of their own dogs - unearthed about six months after death to have these teeth extracted. It takes the teeth of several dogs for one necklace. Interestingly, a man can only marry if he manages to compose such a necklace... Nor would I want to have a mali in my collection, i.e. a necklace made of human bones or teeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How extensive is your collection of ethnic jewellery at present?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It currently has more than 400 pieces on display. I try to bring back 20-30 pieces of jewellery from each trip. The largest number of pieces comes from Nepal, where the jewellery culture is very rich, and the smallest from tribes living on the Amazon or in Ecuador, as jewellery there is relatively poor, made from simple elements such as seeds or strings. I try to buy ornaments directly from the person who made the item themselves or owns it. I am also keen to include in my collection ornaments from countries that I will most likely never get to due to ongoing conflicts there, such as Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan, but which have interesting jewellery. So I will be looking for them in antique shops and other shops in many different parts of the world where they may be available. My ambition is to have jewellery from all these regions of the world in my collection, where it plays a very important role in people's lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What proportion of these artefacts will be seen in your exhibition \u201ePrecious Journeys\u201d<\/strong><\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Jewellery at the Koneser Praga Centre will feature 100 selected jewellery objects and photographs showing jewellery in its natural setting. Several will also document other ways of decorating the body: tattoos, henna painting and scarification. The latter technique involves incising, scratching or even burning the skin to produce designs - in many cultures these are supposed to indicate that a woman will be a good mother because she is resistant to pain. I will also show in the photographs the hoops worn around the necks of Karen tribe women - supposedly to protect them from tiger attacks, but also from being kidnapped by an envious neighbour... Every country has different symbolism - but always interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your private collection of contemporary jewellery - the largest in Poland - is also growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been collecting designer jewellery for over 20 years - initially out of a fascination with beautiful objects and a desire to own them, then out of a need to prove that jewellery is fine art. And when the collection was already quite large, I wanted it to be a representative collection - to describe the people and circumstances under which it was created. This is how the idea of the book \u201eArty\u015bci z\u0142otnicy - rozmowy o polskiej bi\u017cuterii\u201d [Goldsmiths' Artists - Talks about Polish Jewellery] was born, because what I wanted most was to see the creator behind these beautiful objects, because he is the most important. The interviews with artists are full of anecdotes, descriptions of various situations, memories - also of people who have already passed away, but who made a valuable contribution to the development of Polish goldsmiths' art. The first part premiered in March this year, the second part is already being written - there is a chance that it will be published by the end of the year. My life revolves around jewellery, which I love and have always loved. Exploring the world through jewellery is a wonderful experience. I've always regretted not finishing my ethnography - but maybe nothing lost yet? It would be fun to understand jewellery even better.... <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Magdalena Kwiatkiewicz<\/strong> - co-founder of YES, traveller, jewellery lover and collector. Her collection currently numbers over 1 200 objects and is the largest of its kind in Poland. The collector realises her passion for beauty and design by, among other things, promoting Polish goldsmith's art in the YES Gallery in Pozna\u0144, which has been operating for over 20 years. She is also the originator of the book published this year entitled \u201eArty\u015bci z\u0142otnicy. Rozmowy o polskiej bi\u017cuterii\u201d, published this year, which documents the past and present of contemporary Polish goldsmithing in the form of interviews with artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethnic jewellery and photography exhibition \u201ePrecious journeys\u201d <\/strong>
Museum of Contemporary Jewellery (Centre Prague <\/strong>Koneser, Warsaw)<\/strong>
02 - 30 August 2019 <\/strong>
Opening: 2 August 2019, 7pm<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love knows no boundaries - a truth as old as time. Does it also apply to jewellery? Yes, in all its forms. This love gave birth to the ever-expanding collections of contemporary and ethnic jewellery. The latter, brought back from numerous journeys to the farthest corners of the world by Maria Magdalena Kwiatkiewicz, can be seen at the exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Jewellery in Warsaw.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Poznawanie \u015bwiata poprzez bi\u017cuteri\u0119 \u2013 rozmowa z Mari\u0105 Magdalen\u0105 Kwiatkiewicz - Amber Portal","description":"Love knows no boundaries - a truth as old as time. Does it also apply to jewellery? Yes, in all its forms. This love is the birthplace of"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"sekcja":[245],"class_list":["post-18015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wywiady","sekcja-ludzie-opinie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18015"},{"taxonomy":"sekcja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sekcja?post=18015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}