Jury

Petra Bole

Petra has worked as a lecturer, artist, designer, writer, curator and editor. She currently serves as the director of Radovljica Municipal Museums. She was an assistant professor at the Faculty of Design in Slovenia, where she was in charge of the Department of Product Design and worked as Vice Dean for Creative Activity. Petra’s educational background is in architecture (Faculty of Architecture, Ljubljana), jewellery (Master of Art at London Metropolitan University) and the humanities (PhD in Philosophy and Theory of Visual Culture at the Faculty of Humanities Koper/Capodistria, University of Primorska). She completed the school for curators The World of Art, School for Curatorial Practices and Critical Writing and acquired the professional title of curator at the Ministry of Culture of Republic Slovenia.

Anastasia Young

Anastasia Young is a jewellery artist, author and lecturer, whose work has been exhibited internationally. Young’s eclectic jewellery is often project based and driven by a combination of ideas and technical investigation; she uses narrative to explore both the design of a piece and its display when not being worn or used. Examples of her work is held in the permanent collections of the Science Museum, London and Central Saint Martin’s Museum. She recently received a Silver award for her copperplate engraving from the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council, and is interested in the cross-discipline application of traditional craft skills and techniques within contemporary practise. At the moment, this focuses on the intersection between engraving and printmaking. Anastasia is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martin’s College. There she lectured and taught short courses in jewellery making for 20 years. Having written four technical jewellery books (Thames & Hudson, A&C Black, Hoaki) which have been translated into seven languages and are regarded as key text books in their subject area, Anastasia Young is well known as an educator, through her teaching and writing. In 2017, Anastasia was appointed to the board of The Association for Contemporary Jewellery, and is also involved with the Hand Engravers Association and the Society of Jewellery Historians.

Olga Košica

Founder and artistic director of SIWJ and SIAJ – Slovenian Association of Jewellers. She completed her master's degree at the Royal College of Art in London. She is a professional jewellery designer with more than 20 years' experience in this field. She has received numerous international awards, including the British Council Young Creative Fashion Entrepreneur Award, has participated in international projects and exhibitions, and is the co-founder and co-creator of the internationally successful brand OfR jewellery, which was one of the first to bring 3D designed fashion jewellery to the market. As a jewellery designer, she has successfully collaborated with Zlatarna Celje for fifteen years, and is a guest lecturer at universities, both at home and abroad.

Aleksandra Atanasovski

Aleksandra Atanasovski graduated in painting from the Accademia di belle arti di Brera in Milan in 1993 after graduating from the Secondary School of Design. In 1994 she went to India where she studied Tibetan Buddhism and learned about Tibetan ritual Thanka painting. She returned to Slovenia in 2001, worked as a graphic designer throughout her post-graduation, and in 2003 was employed as a designer at Fructal in Ajdovščina. From 2008 to 2010 she designed the local newspaper Prepih. Since 2006, after a long break, she has been designing jewellery. In contemporary art jewellery she has found her own medium, space and expression. She sees jewellery as a communication object through which she expresses ideas about society, the individual and about raising awareness of various phenomena.
Since 2018, she and Maja Licul have been running EHO Studio for Contemporary Jewellery, where, in addition to their jewellery, they occasionally host Slovenian and foreign artists in this field. This helps to raise the profile of the industry in Slovenia, so that it can flourish and become recognised, as it is elsewhere in the world.

Rok Marinšek

A multidisciplinary designer who works in graphic design, branding, art direction and jewellery design. He has participated in numerous international projects and exhibitions, with various Slovenian cultural and artistic institutions, artists, as well as organisations. He has received several awards and prizes for his work. In the project olgafacesrok – OfR, of which he is a cofounder, he explores the field of contemporary jewellery and objects, new technologies and 3D printing.

Désirée Kolarec

Désirée Kolarec is a Slovenian artist and jewellery designer. She brings additional value to her products and designs by inspiring personal well-being for universal welfare. Her style is defined by clean bold shapes, her personality by determination.

She perfected her knowledge and craft at the renowned Royal College of Art London, earning her the prestigious title of Master of Arts. Prior to that she attended the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana as well as the University of Arts and Design Linz and was in 2018 invited as a designer in residency by Loupe Hong Kong a creative hub of the multi-billion Chinese jewellery manufacturer Chow Tai Fook.

Since 2011 she has been working as a Jewellery Designer at Zlatarna Celje, the biggest jewellery manufacturer in Southeast Europe with its roots dating all the way back to 1844, where she was in 2019 appointed as Creative Director.