To celebrate our 25th anniversary this year, the ACJ is organising a major show of excellence, touring several venues throughout the UK in 2022. The exhibition is titled Meanings & Messages.

The exhibition will showcase an exciting and varied collection of up to 50 unique brooches portraying a range of meanings and messages.

We have chosen to focus on brooches for this exhibition, as they form the ideal jewellery archetype for conveying meanings and messages. Brooches can be subversive and are often used by people in the public eye, by political figures or sovereignty to convey important messages. These messages may be hidden, subtle or occasionally more of an overt protest!

The exhibition will tour to the following 5 venues and partnerships. We hope to announce a 6th venue very soon!

• St Georges Arts Centre - Gravesham Borough Council - in partnership with LV21 – 30 April – 29 May 2022

• Exeter University – Conference Pop Up exhibition - 1 - 3 July 2022

• Vittoria Street Gallery – Birmingham School of Jewellery – 19 September – 28 October 2022

• Mission Gallery in partnership with Swansea College of Art UWTSD – 16 November – 21 December 2022

• The Goldsmiths' Centre - 9 January – 24 February 2023

• New Brewery Arts – 4 April – 18 June 2023

Our selection panel, who chose the work this year were -

• Melanie Eddy – Designer, Educator and ACJ Director

• Dairu Han - BA student at Birmingham School of Jewellery

• John Moore – Artist

• Debika Ray – Contributing editor to Crafts magazine

• Rebecca Van Rooijen – Co-Founder and Editor at Benchpeg Ltd

We are also delighted to have The Crafts Council as our education sponsor for this exhibition, joining us for our season of participatory events in our 25th anniversary year! Their support will enable us to offer an enriched education offer, sharing a digital toolkit of craft resources with our partnering venues across the UK.