EXHIBITION | We Meet in Between (on view until Nov 19, 2026)
The Vancouver Metal Arts Association's 2026 international juried exhibition, We Meet in Between, opened on October 7 at the Craft Council of British Columbia (CCBC) gallery on Granville Island and runs until November 19. The exhibition may be viewed during the CCBC Gallery's opening hours.
This contemporary jewellery exhibition brings together work by 22 artists, selected by jurors Charon Kransen, Curtis H. Arima and Estela Saez-Vilanova. You can read more about the three jurors who selected the work in our Meet the Jurors post.
About We Meet in Between: An International Juried Exhibition on Transition
The exhibition looks at the spaces where change happens: between certainty and uncertainty, past and future, tradition and innovation, self and community. Our call for entry asked artists to respond to the "in-between" however they experience it, whether through migration, cultural identity, memory, personal growth or material exploration.
The response came from across Canada and around the world.
The Artists of We Meet in Between
The exhibiting artists work in Vancouver, Montréal and Quebec City, and in South Korea, Hong Kong, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil and the United States. Their materials range from sterling silver and electroformed copper to carved chalcedony, silk organza, mended handkerchiefs and ponderosa pine needles.
Anna Altwein · Michèle Audet · Julia Boix-Vives · Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez · Ting-Fen Chin · Cicy Sze-Yin Ching · Sherry Cordova · Michele Cottler-Fox · Hanyi Feng · Laura Iochins Grisci · Juan Harnie · Afsoon Jafari · BongHwan Kim · Karien Kortenhorst · Emily Lewis · Boglárka Mázsi · Kaytria Stauffer · Youjin Um · Monika Urbaniak · Sharon Wong · Jun Jin Wu · Carolyn Young
Seven Artists in Focus
Julia Boix-Vives, The Powder Rings
Julia Boix-Vives, The Powder Rings, 2024. Brass, makeup brush. Julia Boix-Vives, The Powder Rings, 2024. Brass, makeup brush.
Julia Boix-Vives, The Powder Rings, 2024. Brass, makeup brush.
Photo with model courtesy of the artist.
This pair of brass rings is built around the gesture of powdering the face. One ring holds a mirror and powder vessel, the other a small brush, so wearing them means performing the ritual.
"Together, they capture and transmit this movement, transforming jewellery into a script for choreography."
Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez, Emergence
Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez, a professor in the Metals & Jewelry Design Program at Rochester Institute of Technology, makes work that sits between sculpture and adornment. Emergence is a formed and fabricated ring in sterling silver and 18k gold, finished with powder enamel, nylon canvas, acrylic paint and resin.
"Organic, eroded forms emerge from geometric structures, blurring nature and construction, decay and growth, fragility and permanence."
Sherry Cordova, CITDSM
Cordova, a SCUBA diver with a background in mechatronics engineering, translates scientific illustrations of two species of zooplankton into a reversible cuff. The drawings are made by hand and in CAD, then laser-cut in layers of sterling silver and titanium and finished by hand. The title takes its letters from the two species' names, Clathrocyclas latonae (CI) and Triceratium Diatomea Sliscus Mirabilis (TDSM).
In the CITDSM bracelet, the artist’s “Marine Fauna Meets Industrial” Design Language illuminates the connection and tension between humans and parts of the environment we overlook, forget or intentionally ignore.
Ting-Fen Chin, States of Being I, II and III
Montréal-based silversmith Ting-Fen Chin shows three brooches made of vessel-like forms that emerge from a shared ground. She combines 3D printing and electroforming with traditional metalsmithing and enamelling, leaving the surfaces ruptured and open so that inside and outside stay in exchange.
"...the work explores how difference and connection can coexist. The space between the forms [becomes] a place of encounter where individual states relate to, influence, and are defined by one another. Sharing a common ground without becoming alike, the forms suggest that identity emerges through both difference and belonging."
Monika Urbaniak, Holding Air
Monika Urbaniak is known for her exceptional delicacy in working with multimedia, particularly fibre and metal, and her three Holding Air pieces use heat-set silk organza to give breath a physical form. The necklace sits along the side of the body, near the lungs. In Holding Air #1, a found branch echoes the branching structure of the lungs; in Holding Air #2, a cast brass vessel gathers organza forms that spill past its edge. Of the necklace, she writes:
"Delicate organza forms suggest suspended pockets of air, reflecting the fragile space between inhalation and exhalation."
Youjin Um, Mandala Living in Memory and Time of silence II
Seoul-based Youjin Um's works on display feature breathtakingly pierced sterling silver formed assembled into brooches. The kaleidescopic Mandala Living in Memory is envisioned as a space built to hold childhood memories: "I repeatedly pierce and express this space by my hands as if I were building a house with the mind of an architect."
Carolyn Young, Tentacles Brooch 1 and Tentacles Brooch 2
Carolyn Young's Tentacles Brooch 1 is meticulously constructed from hand-cut and interwoven Mylar, sterling silver, and steel wire. In her statement for Tentacles Brooch 1, she writes: "As humans, we make sense of the world through embodied experience, using our 'feelers' to explore and find new connections, meeting the unknown."
"Tentacles Brooch 1 seeks the creative moment when a repetition of abstract organic elements meets and transforms into something cohesive: a new art object or "organism" that propels new relationships: visual, tactile, spatial, corporeal, and human."
Thank you to our supporters
Thank you to our jurors, Charon Kransen, Curtis H. Arima and Estela Saez-Vilanova, and to the Craft Council of BC for hosting the exhibition and for its ongoing support of the contemporary art jewellery field in Vancouver.
We Meet in Between was organized by VMAA Exhibitions Committee: Mina Saneei (chair), Ingrid Valou, Suzanne Nairne, Wendy Davey and Afsoon Jafari.
Most of all, thank you to every artist who applied.
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