A STUDY 003 / Piece 05

Among Agnieszka Owsiany’s treasured possessions is jewellery inherited from her great-great-grandmother. There is also a ring made from wire and cord, exchanged during a make-believe wedding at a childhood camp. Some of these pieces have monetary value; others virtually none. To Owsiany, the distinction hardly matters.

This became the premise for her commission for A STUDY: a vessel for the treasures we gather over a lifetime.

Working with a master blacksmith, Owsiany began experimenting with black steel and a traditional hand-operated press. Under its force, the pre-formed metal buckled, developing unexpected folds, curves and protrusions. In those accidental movements, she recognised the beginnings of the object. Rather than correcting the deformation, Owsiany made it part of the design. The folds became handles, their thickness and edges refined by hand forging. Steel, chosen for its strength and permanence, revealed an unlikely softness. Fittingly for an object made to safeguard the things we carry through life, the vessel bears its own traces of making: pressure, resistance and the marks of the hands that shaped it — a treasure in its own right, conceived with a sense of permanence, to be kept and passed on.