Speaker bios appear below the schedule. To see everything that AJF is doing in Munich, click here.
Our Speaker Series takes place all five days of Munich’s jewelry week. The talks happen in our booth in the Frame section of the Messe.
Free, and open to all. Please join us!
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2026
11:00 Aaron Decker, Call It a Niche
The American jeweler asks, is art jewelry just another niche, and if so, what does it serve?
13:00 (1 pm) Elena Karpilova, To Climb Up a Ladder
The educator, artist, and writer from Belarus/Portugal reflects on how to see the contemporary jewelry scene in a broader context—and why we all need, from time to time, to climb up a ladder so that the “furrows” in the ground, when viewed from above, turn into meaningful shapes.
14:00 (2 pm) Roberta Bernabei, Re-Conceptualizing [Dis]obedient Jewelry Material Agency and the Disruption of Normative Expectations
The Italian-British editor of JJR reframes jewelry as (dis)obedient bodymatter—an active agent rather than a passively worn object.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2026
11:00 Kevin Murray, Re-Wilding Jewelry: Contemporary Adornment for the “More than Human”
The Australian editor of Garland magazine poses the question: What does it mean to make jewelry for the “more than human”?
13:00 (1 pm) Mette Saabye, Jewelry Dialogues
The Danish maker and curator examines jewelry as a language for entering into dialogue with people.
14:00 (2 pm) Paul Derrez, Jewelry: Beauty or Activism?
The Dutch maker and gallerist asks what do we make, collect, or wear—which choices do we make?
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2026
13:00 (1 pm) Mike Holmes, William Clark Jewelry: Lost & Found
The American gallerist asks, “What happens to jewelry once it has been released into the world? Hopefully it gets loved and worn, but many times it ends up forgotten in a drawer and sometimes lost for years … waiting to be found.”
14:00 (2 pm) Caroline Broadhead, Rebellious Beads
The English artist and educator considers the bead. Just a small object with a hole, it can nevertheless convey so much social information, hold narrative, and be used for exchange and religious ritual.
15:00 (3 pm) Cindi Strauss, Flashpoint: Contemporary Jewelry in the Museum
The field of contemporary jewelry consistently debates its lack of sustained presence in the encyclopedic museum. Why isn’t the work shown more often in meaningful ways? The American curator discusses the challenges and opportunities for change.
SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2026
11:00 Veronika Fabian, Is It Worth It?
The Hungarian-British maker examines the shifting contemporary jewelry landscape through the lens of a former market analyst.
13:00 (1 pm) Keith Lewis, Partly Miscible: My Uneasy Relationship with European Studio Jewelry
With tongue firmly in cheek, the American jeweler reflects on what he finds both interesting and irritating about European-influenced studio jewelry.
14:00 (2 pm) Tanel Veenre, Beauty as a Simulacrum, the Artist as a Fraudster
The Estonian artist introduces some of the world’s greatest manipulators and illusionists in the field of jewelry art. The artist as a fraudster, a trickster—not in order to deceive us, but to show how easily we believe.
SUNDAY, MARCH 8
15:00 (3 pm) Dirk Allgaier, Thoughts on Jewelry and International Women’s Day on March 8: Three Impressive Female Artists from the Last 100 Years
On International Women’s Day, the German publisher of fine craft books spotlights jewelry by three female artists. Who? Find out at the talk!
BIOS
Dirk Allgaier has been employed at Arnoldsche Art Publishers, in Stuttgart, Germany, since 1994, and has served as the company’s managing partner since 2015. Board member of the Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V. (Society for Goldsmiths’ Art). Active member in numerous associations for contemporary applied arts. Serves as an international jury member in the field of applied arts. Extensive publications and lectures on applied arts, particularly on contemporary ceramics and jewelry. Collects contemporary ceramics and jewelry.
Dr. Roberta Bernabei is a leading pioneer in the establishment of Jewellery Practice as Research (JPaR). She completed undergraduate studies in Italy and Germany, followed by postgraduate studies and a PhD in England. She is external examiner at the Royal College of Art, MA Jewellery and Metal, Vice-President of the Association of Contemporary Jewellery in Italy, and was visiting reader at School of Jewellery, Birmingham City University. Currently based at Loughborough University (LU), Bernabei has held three major leadership roles over 21 years: director of BA(Hons) Jewellery, MA director of four postgraduate programs, and director of PhD programs. She is a strong advocate for positioning contemporary jewelry as a critical research field, where practice is integral to scholarly inquiry. Bernabei instigated the Journal of Jewellery Research in 2015—the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to this discipline—now in its eighth volume and sponsored by Getty Publishers, Getty Trust, and AGC Italy. She also established and leads the Jewellery Research Lab (JRLab), based at the School of Design and Creative Arts, LU, fostering collaborative doctoral research on jewelry as a cultural, artistic, and technological medium. Her research outputs span theoretical and practice-based work, consistently published in peer-reviewed contexts and internationally recognized. As an exhibitor and curator for over 30 years, she has contributed to approximately 70 exhibitions worldwide. A forthcoming highlight is an international exhibition to celebrate the Montebello|Bergesio Award at BABS Gallery during Milan Design Week 2026.
Caroline Broadhead’s work centers around objects which come into contact and interact with the body. Although jewelry is a consistent thread, the work has also developed on a larger scale, exploring outer extents of the body as seen through light, shadows, reflections, and movement. Significant elements have included the use of historic buildings as both inspiration and location, and collaborations with choreographers that build intimate and highly charged atmospheres in performance. Broadhead has lectured, taught, and exhibited widely, and her work is represented in many public collections internationally. She has been awarded Loewe Craft Prize finalist, 2025; Herbert Hoffman Prize, 2022; The Goldsmiths Craft & Design Council Lifetime Achievement Award, 2017; and Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts: Textiles, 1997. She retired as course leader of BA Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins in 2018, and is now professor emerita there.
Aaron Decker is an American jeweler and enamelist based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, home to Rosie the Riveter and the Willow Run airport, where B-24 Liberator heavy bombers were manufactured for the second World War. Decker grew up on military bases across the country. His close relationship to his grandfather, a clock smith, drove Decker to pursue jewelry. He graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015 after undergraduate studies and international residencies. Awarded the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist award in 2015, Decker went on to receive the Windgate Fellowship and the Marzee Graduate Prize, and he has been a three-time finalist for Art Jewelry Forum’s Young Artist Award. Decker’s jewelry is housed in both private and public collections and shows regularly internationally.
Paul Derrez is a maker of jewelry, objects, and silverware. He’s active as a teacher, promotor, and collector in our field. From 1976 till 2019, Derrez directed Ra Gallery in Amsterdam. He won the Françoise van den Bosch Award in 1980, and the Herbert Hofmann Prize in 2015. His work is in the collections of National Museum of Scotland; the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; CODA; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the Rijksmuseum; and Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, among many other institutions. He published the book Paul Derrez, Maker – jewellery & objects 1975–2015 in 2015.
Veronika Fabian is a British-Hungarian jewelry maker. She earned her BA in jewelry design from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, in 2018, and completed her MA at the MASieraad Challenging Jewellery program at the Sandberg Instituut, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, in Amsterdam, in 2020. With a background of studies in economics and analysis, her series investigate the impact of contemporary capitalism on daily life and personal identity, both of which play a vital role in her work. Fabian’s work is characterized by an explorative use of chains. She transforms industrially manufactured chains into unique pieces through techniques such as soldering, forging, and various surface treatments. Another prominent group of raw materials in her practice consists of everyday objects, such as wine bottles or coffee machines, which she repurposes into jewelry. Fabian’s work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the National Museum of Scotland; the Pinakothek der Moderne, in Munich; the Dallas Museum of Art; and the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam. Recognized with awards such as the Marzee Graduate Prize, a Cartier Scholarship, the Swarovski “Power of Transformation” Prize, and Unilever’s “Unstereotype” Award, Fabian continues to redefine the boundaries of contemporary jewelry.
California native Mike Holmes received his bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He later studied jewelry/metalsmithing at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. Holmes is the owner of Velvet da Vinci Gallery, established in 1991 in San Francisco, California, curating 100+ exhibitions of contemporary jewelry and craft-based sculpture. Exhibitions included one-person shows, materials-based shows, and thematic and political ones such as the AntiWar Medals, an international touring exhibition responding to the Iraq War, and La Frontera, looking at issues surrounding the US/Mexico border, first shown at Museo Franz Mayer, in Mexico City, and later at Museum of Arts and Design, New York. Artworks from Velvet da Vinci exhibitions have entered the permanent collections of the British Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum; Imperial War Museum London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Arts and Design; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and other institutions and private collections. Holmes has given talks internationally about contemporary jewelry and written articles about craft for the Museum of Arts and Design, Art Jewelry Forum, and Surface Design Journal. The physical gallery space of Velvet da Vinci closed in 2017, but it remains active online, currently with more than 30,000 followers on Instagram. @velvetdavincigallery
Elena Karpilova was born in Belarus. Since 2022, she has lived in Lisbon, Portugal. She has written articles and made videos for Art Jewelry Forum, Klimt02, and other platforms. Karpilova is the founder of the Architectural Thinking School, and a participant in the Venice architecture biennale in 2025. She’s part of the Lisbon Jewelry Biennial organizers team. From 2005–2009, she studied fine art at Glebov Art College (Belarus); from 2010–2016 she studied comparative art criticism at the University of Culture and Arts (Belarus). She is an art critic, an artist, and the head of an interdisciplinary project for children and youth, the Architectural Thinking School for Children, which now works in Portugal with families of migrants. Writer, content maker for Art Jewelry forum. Member of PIN association, Portugal. Member of AGC (Association of Contemporary Jewellery), Italy. Finalist for the AGC Italy – Association of Contemporary Jewellery’s Maria Cristina Bergesio Award 2024. Participant in Lisbon Jewelry Biennial 2024 as curator of L’étrangère project. elenakarpilova.com @karpilova
Keith Lewis received his BS in chemistry from Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) in 1981 and his MFA in jewelry and metalsmithing from Kent State University (Kent, Ohio) in 1993. He has taught at Central Washington University since 1994, where he is currently CWU Distinguished Professor. His jewelry has dealt with issues of sexual identity, memory, loss, and the notion of jewelry as a transportable polemic. It has been widely published and shown both nationally and internationally and is represented in a number of significant public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Rotasa Foundation (California), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Porter/Price Collection (North Carolina), the Susan Beech Collection (California), the Helen Drutt Collection, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Die Neue Sammlung. In addition to his work as an artist and teacher, he has also written for a number of publications including Metalsmith, New Art Examiner, Artweek, and Art Jewelry Forum. He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and of the Metalsmith magazine Editorial Advisory Board.
Dr. Kevin Murray is the editor of Garland Magazine and the co-founder of the Knowledge House for Craft. He has curated many jewelry exhibitions, including Welcome Signs, Guild Unlimited, Signs of Change, and Joyaviva: Live Jewellery across the Pacific, and written related publications, including Place and Adornment: A History of Contemporary Jewellery in Australia and New Zealand (with Damian Skinner). In association with Art Jewelry Forum, he set up an ambassador program to reflect the diversity of jewelry voices across the wider world. He lives at the bottom of the world in the city of Melbourne, known again as Naarm, where he is a senior industry fellow at RMIT University School of Art. On the side, he is the coordinating editor of the Encyclopedia of African Crafts. See Murray’s jewelry-related writing at https://publish.obsidian.md/kdsm/Themes/Jewellery+related+writing
Mette Saabye was selected for Schmuck 2025. Her work is included in Constellations: Contemporary Jewelry at the Dallas Museum of Art. She curated The Danish Jewellery Box, at MAKK, in Cologne. Saabye established her gallery and workshop, in Copenhagen, in 2004. Her delicate work is loaded with stories. These stories are amusing, yet also have a very serious side to them. With great passion and highly technical skills, she designs and crafts beautiful pieces of jewelry in precious as well as nonprecious materials. Her favorite materials are glass, stone, mother-of-pearl, and 18-karat gold. Her jewelry is only produced in limited editions or as unique pieces.
Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator, Department of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her most recent exhibition, which opened in November 2025, is Louvre Couture: Art. Statement Pieces. She was awarded a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 2024. Her publications include the forthcoming exhibition catalog Anya Kivarkis: The Past Made Present, as well as In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture and Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection.
Tanel Veenre has showcased his creations in over 300 exhibitions and fashion shows worldwide since 1994. His work is represented by renowned jewelry galleries including Ornamentum (US), Platina (Sweden), Biro (Germany), Reverso (Portugal), Alice Floriano (Brazil), and Pont&Plas (Belgium). Veenre’s jewelry is part of public collections in Estonia, the Netherlands, the US, France, and Switzerland. Beyond jewelry, his creative practice spans fashion and lifestyle design, theatre costume and stage design, writing, photography, book and magazine publishing, curatorial work, and teaching. Since 2013, Veenre has operated his own brand, available in over 30 stores. He is the proud father of twins and describes himself as a happy, passionate person.