Daily Times

LAHORE: Exhibition featuring stone work by students kicked off at Pakistan Institute of Fashion Design (PIFD) here on Monday. Exhibition was inaugurated by Vice Chancellor Prof Hina Tayyaba. The stone work of 15 students from Department of Jewellery Design and Gemological Sciences of Pakistan PIFD put on display.

Before the exhibition, a two-day workshop was also organised by German based contemporary jeweller Patricia Domingues. The workshop was aimed to be a guiding and experimental process for students from the 5th and 7th Semester to come into contact with diverse hard and soft materials such as clay and plaster, as well as gemstones and minerals, spokesperson PIFD Sadia Zaheer told Daily Times.

She further told that PIFD also arranged student visits to Khewra Salt Mines with Patricia Domingues, along with selected faculty members in the Jewellery department to explore materials in the context of geological processes and time.

The intensive two week workshop was the first of its kind in the jewellery department at PIFD to expose students to more open ended and intuitional ways of studying and responding to the properties of materials, especially gemstones, marbles, using diverse hand tools and lapidary machines. She added that with Pakistan’s North, such as Gilgit and Baltistan, known to be rich in various mineral and gemstone deposits, the workshop also aims to provide potential ground for future collaboration and experimentation to expand Pakistan’s gemstones and lapidary sector.

The course coordinator of Department of Jewellery Design and Gemological Sciences Aslam said, “This was the first ever effort to create awareness of merging semi-precious stones into wearable jewellery elements by the students of PIFD.

All the students’ processed different coloured gemstones of their choice and shaped these into designs of their choice under the supervisions of the visiting foreign jewellery designer. This is a much needed effort to support the export of gemstone products with substantial value addition in foreign exchange as well as to create opportunities of self-employment for PIFD students after graduation.”

Patricia Domingues is the winner of Talente and Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewelry: she brings to the workshop a thoroughly intuitive sensibility of encountering and thinking with materials. Her own work addresses geological processes and their core qualities of shift, time and values.