Description
Maja Stojkovska is an artist from Skopje, currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in Pontoppidan’s class for jewelry and hollowware. She explores how identities and personal histories are shaped and defined by broader social narratives, revealing the emotional depth and inherent contradictions of contemporary life. Maja is also a member of the art collective Kula from Skopje, which has organized the multimedia festival It Is Easier to Breathe Underground since 2013. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Romania, Sweden, China, Portugal, the USA, Austria, and North Macedonia.
‘Achtung Baustelle!’ collection
The collection “Achtung Baustelle! ” pays a homage to her hometown Skopje, a city with more brutalist architecture per square kilometre than any other city in the world. Kenzo Tange was a Japanese architect who designed the new look of Skopje after the earthquake destruction in
1963. Since 2010, his modernist vision of the city was rapidly consumed by a Disneyland-esque, costly and controversial “upgrade” featuring fake-old, pseudo-classical architecture and the world known brutalist face of Skopje was shamelessly covered under the façades of antiquization.
Every piece of the collection is made from discarded electronic waste. Seeking to capture the raw, cold and geometrical style of brutalist architecture in her jewellery, She has chosen to use e-waste elements that have sharp and bold appearance – aluminium heat sinks, various mobile phone components and cables. Through the process of disassembling the e-waste, she gained a better understanding of each source material which further allowed her not only to follow the overall aesthetics of the architectural style, but also to incorporate one of the building techniques of brutalist architecture – sculpturing block-like structures and stacking them one atop another.
The mobile phone components which are the most delicate pieces and almost impossible to shape, unlike the aluminium heat sinks, are often used as-are to be perfectly fitted in with eco-resin like a jigsaw puzzle and serve to ornament their aluminium parent block.
