Home

Current and upcoming exhibitions

19.9. – 1.12.2024
Selected Works of the Contemporary Jewellery Awards ENJOIA’T 2024, Disseny Hub Barcelona, Spain

26.9. – 6.10.2024
Not Only Decoration – After the End: Visionen von Morgen, Gemeinschaftsatelier Stoss im Himmel, Vienna, AT

Opening 9.10.2024
Minun Maailmani II, The Finnish Museum of Horology and Jewellery Kruunu, Espoo, FI

30.10.2024 – 28.2.2025
METALLOphone – Don’t Tell me a Story, Museum of Applied Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania

11.1. – 27.4.2025
Aistinvarainen, Craft Museum of Finland, Jyväskylä, FI

Instagram

wpandikow

jewelry/art made from recycled plastic bags

FINALLY some more about the craft research I’ve

FINALLY some more about the craft research I’ve been working on for the last months, as I promised already aahh… 4 months ago 🤣

Let me start before I started, as it were:
Even before getting into the actual research I had begun creating a general list of different kinds of techniques that have been used in Finland traditionally for a long time and are based on semi-soft or soft materials, which would make them usable for me with plastic bags. Going through books, museums and of course the internet I came up with a list of around 15 techniques that fit my objectives best, most of them with several subtechniques (for example, under weaving I grouped rag rugs, different band weaving, different kinds of tapestries and so on) That was of course waaaaaaay too many to even attempt to research, learn and adapt in half a year (which is the time I got funding for). So I started out May with cutting down the list to the techniques I mentioned in the earlier post already: birch bark weaving/plaiting (tuohin suora- ja vinopunonta in Finnish), bobbin lace (pitsinnypläys) and nålbinding (neulakinnastekniikka). I also kind of added spinning at some point, because I realised it was an important base for other techniques but I am unsure yet if it warrants its own separate series of works in the end, we will see.

How I decided what to use in the end was mostly on what felt the most feasible and in some cases (like types of weaving) I decided against a group of techniques because there was just too much information for me to use in the amount of time I have (but something to definitely come back to!)
.
.
As illustration, have a few pictures of some nice artefacts from the Finnish National museum @kansallismuseo (except the snowshoe, I don’t remember where that’s from) and a glimpse of my file with the list of techniques
.
.
.
Thank you Taike (@taikegram) for supporting my work
#contemporarycraft #finnishcrafts #finnish #birchbark #tuohi #plasticbags #madefromwhat #craftresearch #adaptingcraft #research #kansallismuseo #oldcrafts

Here some background information on my now Enjoia'

Here some background information on my now Enjoia't awarded (🥰) piece "Bread Basket 5 biodegradable"!

When applying to be considered for the award that included making a presentational video about the piece. I was reluctant to post it publicly at first as it was just meant for the jury originally. But now I think it might be interesting for others as well, to show the work that went into that. Edited a little for clarity!
.
.
.
.
.
@afad_associacio
#contemporaryjewelry #jewelryart #PlasticJewels #madefromwhat #plasticbags #biodegradable #AnthropoceneArtifacts #ContemporaryBasketry #WearableArt
#contemporaryjewelryexhibition #awardwinner #enjoiat2024 #background #makingofvideo

I spent a night in the woods and was very tired ge

I spent a night in the woods and was very tired getting back, so it was a great surprise indeed to finally open Instagram again this morning and get these amazing news! My work has been honoured with this year’s Enjoia’t Contemporary Jewelry Award! 🤩
Thank you to the jury and Association of Artists and Artisans @afad_associacio !

“Professional category: “Bread Basket 5 Biodegradable” by Wiebke Pandikow.
What does the jury say?

The sensibility to transform a biodegradable plastic bag into a piece of art jewellery shows the compromise and the ability of Wiebke to interpret the theme. The soft texture of the piece gives the impression of a thread and the volume resembles a bread basket, a comfort and quotidian element that reminds us the importance of small things in life.”

As accompaniment, see just the first seconds of my presentational video about the piece, which was made for the jury as part of the application 😁
.
.
.
.
.
#contemporaryjewelry #jewelryart #PlasticJewels #madefromwhat #plasticbags #biodegradable #AnthropoceneArtifacts #ContemporaryBasketry #WearableArt
#contemporaryjewelryexhibition #awardwinner #enjoia't2024

I am very happy to be part of @notonlydecoration ‘s upcoming exhibition in Vienna opening on the 26th:
After the End - Visions of Tomorrow at the @atelier.stossimhimmel

“The exhibition presents works which explore a future after the apocalypse, stimulate discussion and give inspiration for change.”

Three of my Cinder brooches made from burned wood and plastic bags are part of the exhibition 🖤

Posterdesign by @veresa_eybl
#NOD #NotOnlyDecoration #AtelierStossImHimmel #TheApocalypseAndFutureMashUpEdition #madefromwhat #palsticbags #forestloss #burnedwood #contemporaryjewelry #activistart

Bread Basket 5 biodegradable brooch, 2024 plastic

Bread Basket 5 biodegradable
brooch, 2024
plastic bags labelled biodegradable, mechanism stainless steel

“The Enjoia’t International Contemporary Jewellery Awards reach their 28th edition to present the best pieces of artistic jewellery worldwide. This year’s jury, [...] has chosen a total of 29 pieces that are eligible for the various awards given this year. [...]
This award recognises the proposal that questions and transgress the limits of contemporary jewellery through its originality, technical quality and the conceptual richness. The 2024 Enjoia’t awards put the focus on sustainability, traceability, and the resignification of materials in contemporary jewellery.”

So it says on the Enjoia’t webpage and I am very happy indeed to be included in the selection, the exhibition of which will open next week on the 19th at the Disseny Hub in Barcelona 🤩
.
.
All artists: Antonia Barra, Victoria Belert Gimeno, Ana Cardim, Macarena Cianciarulo, Elvira Cibotti, Denis Music, Chiyang Duan, Laura Egea, Javier Ens, Eva Fernandez Martos, Lola Giuffré, Hiyu Hamasaki, Yiwei Huang, Juan José Ibáñez Piqueras, Sonia Jurado, Ji Young Kim, Jung Ki Min, Makila Nsika, Taibe Palacios, Wiebke Pandikow, Helena Pons Sans, Ahlam Qaissi, Liu Qiwei, Nora Sarlak, Mengying Sun, Yumeng Wu, Ruiya Xu, Xuan Xu, Dahin Yoo, Yuki Yoshioka
.
.
.
@afad_associacio @dissenyhub
#contemporaryjewelry #jewelryart #PlasticJewels #madefromwhat #plasticbags #biodegradable #AnthropoceneArtifacts #ContemporaryBasketry #WearableArt
#contemporaryjewelryexhibition

At the start of this year I was able to join a pro

At the start of this year I was able to join a project by the Watch and Jewelry museum Kruunu in Espoo for an exhibition that will open in October. It’s called Minun Maailmani II (My World II) and is a continuation of a series of projects with which the museum wants to show the realities of different minorities in Finland through jewelry art. In this case it meant that a group of jewelry artists was connected with a group of highly educated immigrant women in Finland, to meet them and get to know them, hear about their experiences coming to this country and then create a piece of jewelry/art to somehow reflect these experiences.

Through this project, in spring I was able to meet and get to know a very focused, intelligent young woman from Nepal who had come to Finland not so long ago, and despite high-level education, experience and a continuously developing knowledge of the Finnish language was unable to find work. Writing hundreds of applications in a very short amount of time and not getting any response really decimated her confidence in what she knew she could do. Her tenacity did pay off in the end and she finally got a Yes as an answer, but it was with employment not at a level with her actual area of expertise. There are signs that this will change though, and she builds her future trying to connect two parts of her life that are not easy to connect - something I can at least understand a little, as I am also an immigrant to Finland, though from a much closer and thus easier to manage cultural sphere.
Over the next week I will be posting in my stories pictures about my process in making a piece to visualise her story!
.
.
.
.
.
@kellojakorumuseokruunu
#minunmaailmaniII #immigration #immigrationstories #workinprogress #madefromwhat #contemporarybasketry #contemporaryjewelry #plasticbags #reuse #lowwasteart

I'm back from spending some wonderful holidays in

I'm back from spending some wonderful holidays in Scotland so I probably should start posting something here again 🙈 Conveniently, I realized I actually finished a piece at the end of July that I haven't shown of yet so here you go! Bread Basket Nr. 8. As always, made from plastic bread bags and stainless steel for the mechanism.
.
.
.
.
.
#madefromwhat #plasticbags #upcyclingplastic #Plasticbasketry #ChooseToReuse #LowWasteArtist #breadbags #coiling #coiledbasketry #jewelryart #contemporaryjewelry #ContemporaryCraft

One more land art piece I did last week before I’m off on holidays for three weeks 🤩

Virta (käpyjoki) / Stream (pinecone river)
Spruce cones on forest floor
About 20-25m long
Kaunissaari, July 2024
.
.
.
.
.
@oldforestechoes #landart #forestart #pinecones #river #flowing #arrangement #everythingflows #kaunissaari #moss #billberry #wildart #forestfloor #sprucecones

One more land art piece I did last week before I’m off on holidays for three weeks 🤩

Virta (käpyjoki) / Flow (pinecone river)
Spruce cones on forest floor
About 20-25m long
Kaunissaari, July 2024
.
.
.
.
.
#landart #forestart #pinecones #river #flowing #arrangement #everythingflows #kaunissaari #moss #billberry #wildart #forestfloor #sprucecones

"Traces" I also just did some more meditative weav

"Traces"
I also just did some more meditative weaving of random shapes in a biiiig patch of that lovely fluffy grass.
So once again flows and patterns and connections, celebrating how strong a fibre becomes when interwoven into bigger strands (in ‘21 I used the same technique and the resulting piece was much more resilient to the elements than I thought it would be)
.
.
.
.
.
@projectlandjewelry @oldforestechoes #landart #landjewelry #projectlandjewelry #materialsflowing #naturalart #lowwasteart #grass #wovengrass #knottedgrass #bloominggrass #humantraces #patternsingrass

I also did some more grass weaving stuff on Mörkö, because I just really like working with the fibre that is grass.

“Between” is a small piece of sticks wedging into the forked trunks of a tree and then weaving beautiful, fluffy grasses into them. So lots of between spaces - between the trunks of the tree, between the sticks and then of course also the empty space between the two different woven grasses which you can see the background through, if you refocus your eyes.
So focusing and refocusing was on my mind when I worked on this, and how I think we often should really take a step back when looking at problems and realise how they are connected to much broader issues - just as one example, how sometimes in nature conservation it would be much more helpful to look at the whole ecosystem and how local communities are connected to it, and not just aiming to preserving some single, easily marketable species.

And then I also just did some more meditative weaving of random shapes in a biiiig patch of that lovely fluffy grass and even made a small hear - aawwww! 😛
So once again flows and patterns and connections, celebrating how strong a fibre becomes when interwoven into bigger strands (in ‘21 I used the same technique and the resulting piece was much more resilient to the elements than I thought it would be)
.
.
.
.
.
@projectlandjewelry #landart #landjewelry #projectlandjewelry #materialsflowing #naturalart #lowwasteart #grass #wovengrass #between #inbetweenspaces #knottedgrass #bloominggrass

The biggest piece I did on Mörkö at the end of J

The biggest piece I did on Mörkö at the end of June as part of Project Land Jewelry ‘24 was an accumulation of different things around a beautiful old pine. I started out collecting pine cones and then arranging them between the roots and bark of the tree all with the bottoms up, creating a texture almost like the skin of a great reptile. Unfortunately, in the following night the freely grazing cows in the area walked all over it so that piece was very short lived.
After that I just added more and more branches, twigs and cones(now in all directions) and then also integrated an abandoned little shed right beside the tree and material from where someone had dumped their building waste by the shore.
I visualised flows of different materials interlocking, pointing towards the nearby sea. All material, of course, eventually flows together, as all is part of one immense ecosystem. If one part of it suffers, that will have consequences for the whole.
.
.
.
Photographing this was super frustrating. Not just because of the bright sunlight we had most of the time, but also because land art like this is necessarily part of a landscape and when it molds itself to it, can get lost in it. While generally I think that is a feature, not a bug, it makes it hard to document the piece especially when one is absolutely not a professional photographer. Still, I did learn a lot making this and hope next time it will be able to arrange something that stands out a little more also in the pictures.
.
.
@projectlandjewelry @oldforestechoes #landart #landjewelry #projectlandjewelry #pine #pinecones #arrangement #flows #materialsflowing #naturalart #lowwasteart #repurposedwaste #abandoned #greatpine

The biggest piece I did on Mörkö at the end of J

The biggest piece I did on Mörkö at the end of June as part of Project Land Jewelry ‘24 was an accumulation of different things around a beautiful old pine. I started out collecting pine cones and then arranging them between the roots and bark of the tree all with the bottoms up, creating a texture almost like the skin of a great reptile. Unfortunately, in the following night the freely grazing cows in the area walked all over it so that piece was very short lived.
After that I just added more and more branches, twigs and cones(now in all directions) and then also integrated an abandoned little shed right beside the tree and material from where someone had dumped their building waste by the shore.
I visualised flows of different materials interlocking, pointing towards the nearby sea. All material, of course, eventually flows together, as all is part of one immense ecosystem. If one part of it suffers, that will have consequences for the whole.
.
.
.
Photographing this was super frustrating. Not just because of the bright sunlight we had most of the time, but also because land art like this is necessarily part of a landscape and when it molds itself to it, can get lost in it. While generally I think that is a feature, not a bug, it makes it hard to document the piece especially when one is absolutely not a professional photographer. Still, I did learn a lot making this and hope next time it will be able to arrange something that stands out a little more also in the pictures.
.
.
@projectlandjewelry #landart #landjewelry #projectlandjewelry #pine #pinecones #arrangement #flows #materialsflowing #naturalart #lowwasteart #repurposedwaste #abandoned #greatpine

I suspended my craft research last week, when I we

I suspended my craft research last week, when I went to Sweden's island of Mörkö to spent a really lovely week with a really wonderful group of artists creating land art. This was the second iteration of Project Land Jewelry which I organized together with Maja Breife on Öland in 2021, but which was this time made possible by the work of Kajsa Wickström with some help by Anna Pettersson. A massive thanks to you, because I had such a great time spending these days in an amazing landscape (a pasture ecosystem that has become super rare nowadays) together with amazing people! At some later point there will be posts about what I did (see @projectlandjewelry also for what everyone did!), now I just wanted to gush about how wonderful the week was. I even made a little animal friend, Kurran the cat, who followed me all day on Saturday!
We also had super weather, almost too hot, for most of the week - a bit easier than our fighting with wind and rain which we had on Öland 3 years ago 😉
.
.
.
.
.
@projectlandjewelry @konstigakajsa @annaspettersson
#balticseashore #swedishsummer #naturalpasture #summerlandscape #blueandgreen #mörkösweden #sunset #hiddenshore #fieldsandforest #pine #projectlandjewelry

Last week the KORU8 event organised by the Finnish

Last week the KORU8 event organised by the Finnish Jewelry Art Association, @korutaideyhdistys, was taking place in Lappeenranta and it was wonderful! I attended an amazing wood carving workshop for three days and then there were the seminars on Friday and Saturday with some really excellent lectures. Saturday we also went to Lusto museum (@lustomuseum) in Punkaharju, to see the KORU8 main exhibition.

And because there are so many cool pieces there I just really wanted to make another post about them!

Aaand because there are still so many I haven’t shown and the whole exhibition is just really cool to see live, do go and have a look at that yourself if you can! It can be seen until December 1st, every day from 10-17!

And now for the pieces:
1 - Åsa Elmstam, @asaelmstam, critiquing purely profit oriented forestry depleting ecosystems in Sweden (a similar situation to Finland, unfortunately)
2 - Rachel Ouizeman, @rachel.ouizemann, photo or ring or pendant?
3 - Helena Lehtinen, @helehti1
4 - Shun Wan Ko, @tara.shunwan
5 - Olga Stalev, @hvitolg, lovely little pearl maggots
6 - Ismini Pachi, @ismini.pachi
7 - Janne Peltokangas, @jannepeltokangas
8 - Ingrid Berg
9 - Josephine Winter, @filosophine_winther, of course I had to feature the baskets and the fact that they’re inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s Carrying Bag Theory of Fiction <3
10 - Steven Kaplan-Pistiner, @stevenkp_
.
.
.
.
.
#contemporaryjewelry #jewelryart #koru8 #jewelryartexhibition #headingforthewoods #forest #home #intotheforest #KoruEvent #KoruTriennial #korutaideyhdistys
#FinnishJewelleryArtAssociation #Korutaide #JewelleryArt #ContemporaryJewellery
#JewelleryDesign #ContemporaryCraft #Exhibition #Koru8Exhibition

There have been a few glimpses of this in my stori

There have been a few glimpses of this in my stories already, so some of you might have noticed that I have been going through a research phase on more traditional handicraft techniques. The reason for that is - to my absolute joy - that a bit over a month ago I have received a grant for doing exactly that: I am now researching old Finnish craft techniques, mostly focused on textile and basketry, learning their basics and applying them to my own chosen material (discarded plastic bags). Eventually, my goal is to develop for myself new methods of working that use aspects of those traditional techniques in order to create bigger jewelry, sculptural and wall relief pieces that will be exhibited in ‘25 and the following years.
Thank you Taike (@taikegram) for supporting my work!

I’m as lazy as always in doing my social media, but over the next few posts I will try to open up a bit more about the different techniques I’m researching (and continue adding little snapshots to my stories). While I’m right now just simply learning the basics and trying to understand structures, the eventual goal is not just to use those techniques as they are, but to create pieces that will take them further - change them, break them, mix them, add to them - in order to make them my own in some way.
.
.
Some examples of traditional crafts found in Finland, here used on plastic bags for testing:
2 - Kehrääminen / Spinning - not just making plarn, plastic yarn, but tightening, twisting and pulling the strips until the structure “slips” into a much thinner, more flexible string. This has already become an important base for me for using with other techniques.
3, 4, 5 - Neulakinnastekniikka - nailbinding
6,7 - Pitsinnypläys - bobbin lace
8,9 - Tuohitekniikat - techniques used for working with birch bark
.
.
.
#contemporarycraft #finnishcrafts #finnish #nailbinding #nålebinding #tuohi #plasticbags #madefromwhat #craftresearch #adaptingcraft #LowWasteArtist #upcycling #testingtechniques #handicraftdifferently #attheworktable

Last Thursday the KORU8 International Jewelry Art

Last Thursday the KORU8 International Jewelry Art Triennial exhibition organized by the Finnish Jewelry Art association (@korutaideyhdistys) opened at Lusto museum in Punkaharju. It was lovely to be there and help build it for a few very intense days before the opening!
All pieces pertain to one theme (Heading for the Woods) in fascinatingly different ways, but additionally the selection gives a great introduction into what jewelry art can be, all the different shapes it can take.
I also reaaally like the exhibition design by Krister Gråhn (@krister_grahn). It brings all those pieces into a home environment - onto tables and bookshelves and even a bathroom; the home as a place from where we think of the forest, sometimes fear it, sometimes idolise it, often crave it.
It also shows that jewelry pieces can be wonderfully close and ‘available’ in everyday life - even if a piece isn’t worn at some point (or ever, for whatever reason), it can be right there, on your night table or your bookshelf, where you can appreciate it close up every day, it doesn’t need to be packed away in a drawer.

In any case, if you’re in eastern finland over the summer, definitely do have a look:
KORU8 at The Finnish Forest Museum Lusto in Punkaharju from the 17th May to the 1st December 2024, open Mo-Su 10am–5pm

Full artist list and more information can be found at koru8.fi

Pictures are as follows:
1 rooms of a home @lustomuseum
2 Meghan Schmiedel, @meghanschmiedel
3 Maria Nuutinen, @nuutisenmaria
4 in the front Anna Rikkinen’s (@annarikkinen) huge wooden necklace and in the background on the wall Inni Pärnänen, @inniparnanen
5 Lingjie Wang, @lingjie_wang - mushrooms!
6 Manami Aoki, @manami_aoki_jewellery - furry wood!
7 Therese Johansson, @theresejohanssonjewellery
8 Gésine Hackenberg, @gesinehackenberg
9 Yuxi Lu, @yuxi__lu - made from old electric cables!
10 Kendall Reiss,@kendall.a.reiss

And so many more that I can’t fit in the post!

And the making of of another 'Bread Bag' necklace!

And the making of of another 'Bread Bag' necklace!
I changed the string in the end to a twined one, since the thin one didn’t look nice…
Lots of coiling 🙂
If you wanna try it out yourself, just search for tutorials on Coiling Basketry, cut yourself some strips from plastic bags and off you go!
.
.
.
.
.
#ContemporaryCraft #ContemporaryBasketry #WasteArt #AnthropoceneArtifact #madefromwhat #plasticbags #upcyclingplastic #Plasticbasketry #ChooseToReuse #LowWasteArtist #breadbags #plarnweaving #coiling #coiledbasketry

Basket Variation 1 / Nostalgia object/sculpture Pl

Basket Variation 1 / Nostalgia
object/sculpture
Plastic bread bags, linen string
~9 x 17 x 6.5cm
.
The slightly yellowish-orangey tones of old photos in heavy, padded albums. Cracked plastic toys forgotten in the yard. Sun warmed apples in wicker baskets.
.
.
.
.
#ContemporaryCraft #ContemporaryBasketry #WasteArt #AnthropoceneArtifact #madefromwhat #plasticbags #upcyclingplastic #Plasticbasketry #ChooseToReuse #LowWasteArtist #breadbags #plarnweaving #coiling #coiledbasketry

Finishing off! . . . . #ContemporaryCraft #Contemp

Finishing off!
.
.
.
.
#ContemporaryCraft #ContemporaryBasketry #WasteArt #AnthropoceneArtifact #madefromwhat #plasticbags #upcyclingplastic #Plasticbasketry #ChooseToReuse #LowWasteArtist #breadbags #plarnweaving #coiling #coiledbasketry

Load More Follow on Instagram