Joani Groenewald

Joani is a lecturer in the Visual Arts Department, as well as a jewellery designer, goldsmith and artist. She sees her technical grounding, as a medium that allows her to make conceptual art. She  graduated with a Bachelor in Visual Art (Creative Jewellery- and Metal Design) degree from Stellenbosch University in 2009. After graduation she continued her technical training, and in 2011 she qualified as a goldsmith .In March 2015 she successfully completed her Masters in Visual Arts degree at Stellenbosch University. Currently she is enrolled for a PhD in Jewellery and Object Design at PXL-MAD Hasselt and Stellenbosch University.

 

She has participated in numerous, national and international contemporary jewellery exhibitions. In 2018 Joani won the South African contemporary Jewellery awards and in 2019 se was awarded the second place in the Jewellery category of the PPC Imaginarium Awards.

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Joani views contemporary jewellery as medium through which one can critically reflect upon one’s social and political environment. Her research interests are memory studies, narrative and translation specifically in relation to a South African context. She continues to make art that feeds to and from these research interests. Her art questions the stability of memory, translation and narrative while also challenging the traditional function of jewellery.

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