Organised by the Design Institute of Australia, the annual ASDA aims to acknowledge high-achieving undergraduate design students, apprentices and graduates. Each year, tertiary institutions across Australia and New Zealand are invited to nominate four students’ designs for each category. The jewellery design category in particular looks for pieces that exhibit ergonomic, functional and aesthetic aspects with an emphasis on sustainable design practices.
For this year’s jewellery design category, only tertiary institutions from Australia submitted nominations.
Kiuru, who is enrolled at the Royal Institute Melbourne of Technology, won a $1,000 Peter W Beck-sponsored cash prize for her pieces ‘Winter Thoughts’.
Kiuru created a series of jewellery using non-toxic, low-cost, mostly recyclable materials that are traditionally reserved for industrial use.
“The series is titled ‘Winter Thoughts’ as the colours, clean lines and dark tones emerging reminded me of the bare landscape in my native Finland during the cold months,” Kiuru said. Although her homeland is Finland, Kiuru has lived in Australia for the past 17 years.
She used materials such as copper, stainless steel, industrial plumbing mesh, liquid enamel and brass to create rings, brooches and neckpieces.
The judging panel for the jewellery design category said Kiuru’s ‘Winter Thoughts’ illustrated “a beautiful juxtaposition of a raw, natural environment with a refined, aesthetic view.”
Danyka Van Buuren who hails from the Australian National University in Canberra was runner-up in the jewellery design category with ‘Picnic Gems’, a range of wearable pieces that were fabricated using reclaimed materials.
She won a $500 Peter W Beck voucher for precious metals.
Van Buuren used kitchen plastics such as melamine, bakelite, acrylic and recycled sterling silver to create the pieces.
“‘Picnic Gems’ serve to challenge conventional notions of value in jewellery, deriving their preciousness not simply from monetary worth, but from their history, the hand of the maker and their shifted context,” Van Buuren said.
Hana Bartovicova from the Central Institute of Technology in Western Australia won third prize for her piece ‘The Phoenix.’
Bartovicova used the red silk chords of a gift wrapper to create her necklace alongside sterling silver pieces which can be rearranged many times over to create a different piece each time.
The Design Institute of Australia awarded Bartovicova, alongside the two other winners, one year sponsored graduate memberships to the institute.