Participants (see their HS progress)
- Antonia Boyle
- Aphra Cheesman
- Nina van Duijnhoven
- Jack Hadley
- Fran Leitch
- Nikki Perry
- Amelia Rothwell
- Mia Straka
- Simon Swale
- Susan Videler
- Michelle Wilkinson
- Macarena Bernal
The HANDSHAKE 6 Activities’ programme for 2020 – 2021:
MASTERclass 2021
ON-E by: Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October about ONLINE EXHIBTIONS with the intention to prepare Handshake 6 artists for their online exhibition submission

Statement: Recently, curators and educators have progressively started exploring the numerous possibilities proposed by virtual exhibitions. Institutions have made 3-D tours of their galleries accessible online through a variety of platforms, allowing visitors from around the globe to virtually “wander” through many Museums around the world, Van Gogh Museum or Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico among other significant sites. But when the Covid-19 pandemic started, public curiosity in virtual art experiences, as for the need of the maker to present worldwide their works, increased like never before.
The online-exhibiting field is yet to be fully discovered, therefore our main purpose with this Masterclass -besides the fact that Handshake Program has since long counted with online exhibitions-, it is to offer intuitive virtual exhibition ideas and presentation of our works, that offers flexibility and are willing to reach to public and/or followers showing their final results, as for its working process as part of the result itself. Aiming at generating enthusiasm through sharing emotions, new values and creating expectations; “The goal is the meaning and the meaning is the goal” while testing abstract and visual/sound experiments, we will our work and process as for the idea of how to present virtually these works yet we as creators. Throughout provoking alternatives to in-person viewing, interactive and a variety of content formats that viewers can engage with, especially during the present times we live in.
Techniques: Video/sound/photo
JEWELcamp 2021 June – Aug
FUNDRAISING Workshop
by: Joany Grima
Objectives: To empower HS6 artists to create a practical, implementable and achievable plan to achieve your collective Handshake fundraising goal.
JEWELcamp & MASTERclass 2020
The HS6 programme started off in pre-Covid January with a JEWELcamp that contained an intro and instruction to the programme, and a Push/Pull intro workshop with Renee Bevan, and a Masterclass workshop with Iris Eichenberg at NZ school of Art & Fashion, Epsom, Auckland.
What happened during MASTERclass:
HS6 artists had to place 5 unfinished works and a finished work they brought along from their workshops on the table.
Iris asked to spend 45 mins with no talking, moving around the tables and adding, subtracting, or moving/grouping works as they pleased.
On an adjacent table, each had tipped out the shoebox of workshop materials they brought along. Invited to help themselves to anyone’s collection they ‘interfered’ with others’ work on the table. After this, all had to write down what was noticeable when they interfered with other’s people’s objects, and what was noticeable what happened to their own work.
Each discussed that in the group.
Following that Iris asked to take some things off the table that was thought were not finished or did not belong there – then to replace it with something.
After that they were instructed to categorise the remaining works into groupings.
They started this in seperate groups, but all moved in and around so the groups weren’t fixed, which happened naturally. After categorising, the remaining works were labelled and went into collections.
This freeing and fun exercise illuminates and illustrates how artists operate in terms of editing and taste preferences.
Iris’ questioning and inspiring ways brought magic to HS6
Blog Posts
Through the looking glass, and what Alice found there
This new world is different. Just like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in 1872, we are now submerged in a backwards place. Busy roads are quiet, concert halls silent, and galleries are closed. Time is not quite running backwards, but it is going at a slower pace.
Quick Objects – PUSH
These are strange times. The change of routine and having to stay at home can’t help but affect how we work as artists and what we make. For me, the past month has been full of experiments and different ways of working. Thinking about Renee Bevans PUSH/PULL workshop,...
Schmuck 2020 and Corona
Dear Nina, We are very pleased to invite you to “Schmuck 2020” the special jewellery show during the 72nd International trade fair Munich. Chequita Nahar, dean of Academy of Fine Arts and Design Maastricht selected 63 artists from 29 countries out of 802...
Gatherings and interferences
We HS6’ers gathered in one place for our masterclass with Iris Eichenberg on 25 January 2020. The day before, we had met each other for the first time at Jewel Camp and shown our presentations to the room. Renee Bevan did her Push/Pull supercharged workshop with us...
Knots in the stomach
It was a little daunting presenting to a largely unknown group in Auckland that first day, however the benefits far outweighed any initial concerns. Renee Bevan grounded us all with a quick introduction to the Push /Pull theory. I feel fortunate to be with a group of...
IMPOSTER
Turning up on the first day of JEWELcamp I felt like a total impostor. I’m not a ‘real jeweller’ but a gleeful hobbyist. I haven’t gone to jewellery school. I’m impatient and I don’t know how to do things properly. Instead I go to jewellery night classes and watch...
A Manifesto Mashup
I begin with research around an idea. I obsess over it. It fills my head, completely, overwhelmingly. Everything revolves around this idea. Then I need to take time to give it space. Try not to rush it. To unfocus for a while. My themes tend towards the dark side, so I have to escape them for a bit. For my own sanity.
Then, when all the madness dissipates, I begin.
Intentional or by default?
Exhausting and at times an emotional roller-coaster, but what an amazing experience the Masterclass with Iris Eichenberg was. I am so grateful and happy to be part of this project and wonderful bunch of Handshakers! Fellow artists becoming friends to learn from, share...
INSIGHTS WITH IRIS
‘What makes the body present in this world is the doorway that is too small to fit through without having to make a shift’. Iris Eichenberg Over four days at the end of January 2020, we 12 Handshake6 participants came together for the first time to take part in a...
MY EXPERIENCE BEGINNING HS6
Meeting Iris was fabulous. The masterclass weekend was exhausting, by Sunday I had been working for 6 days straight in the same building not having much contact with the non-jewellery world. I was jewellery-ed out. During those eternal sessions with Iris I carefully...
MEETINGS OF MINDS
January and February have been a whirlwind starting with the kick-off of Handshake 6 and ending in the beginnings of studio experiments. Jewelcamp started with sweaty hands and a pounding heart. Upon meeting the other handshakers I found myself among friends, with...
LET’S BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING…
LET’S BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING… by Michelle Wilkinson | Mar 2, 2020 | Handshake6, Michelle Wilkinson In the last few days I have felt an almost overwhelming desire to stand in the ocean. Not to swim, or float or splash, just to stand. Waist deep, not moving, focused on...
NUGGETS
Iris Eichenberg masterclass – Jan 2020 “It’s about the final outcome being not just jewellery.” The thing that struck me most about Iris, aside from her warmth and generosity, was her use of language. The way she uses words is poetic and insightful. She has the...
IT’S MORE THAN A “WOO WOO TABLE”!
‘All art is magic’, Alistair Crowley The HS6 workshop in Auckland back in January with Iris Eichenberg was sublime (11 fantastic people to be in this journey with too). Through Iris’s exquisitely crafted turn of phrase regarding our work and projects, she challenged...
CONVERSATIONS WITH IRIS EICHENBERG
A reflection on the masterclass & our first collaboration as HANDSHAKE 6 I have a feeling that the masterclass with Iris Eichenberg was one of those critical moments in my practice as a contemporary jeweller. I left with a greater understanding of what is...










