Brick by Brick is part of my doctoral research in which I explore the materiality of the urban environment by interacting with seemingly solid and fixed objects such as bricks. Brick by Brick is a series of necklaces with pendants hand-cut from slices of fired bricks and meticulously hand-woven, unique cords. Working with brick was an overwhelming corporeal and sensory experience for me. While I was surrounded by the grinder’s noise and tasted the dust while carving, the material cracked open and revealed normally invisible qualities such as tiny shimmering pebbles that give the clay firmness or small fractures that, although harmless, give the pendants an illusive fragility. A single brick is a building in the making, its handheld format is primarily experienced by masons. Once shaped into pendants, the stones feel exceptionally light and soft, unlocked by jewellery qualities such as material sensitivity and wearability.

The pendants’ shapes are trowels used to lay bricks or plaster walls, resulting in shapes reminiscent of shields and amulets. Sawing and sanding bricks into these shapes draws attention to the tools and hands that built a wall, a building, a street, a city. They explore manual gestures related to (urban) craftmanship, often overlooked when experiencing a city, and allows the wearer to touch and be touched by the city. The cord of each necklace is hand-woven using the Japanese art of Kumihimo braiding. This time-consuming and labour-intensive craft technique adds to the attention to detail and allows each cord to be customised to a specific brick.

Liesbet Bussche’s doctoral research is funded by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University (BOF-20DOC01).

Liesbet Bussche, Brick by Brick, necklaces, 2023
Materials: brick, cotton or PAC
Dimensions: varied