Schmatzen

Trophy commission 2020

It is unusual to place jewellery inside the mouth. The trophy for the Françoise van den Bosch Award recipient Lauren Kalman is about the sounds that occur while wearing a piece like hers. It visualizes the sounds of bodily functions. Schmatzen is a German word which means ‘to produce sounds by closing and sudden opening of moist lips and tongue’. There is no direct English translation of this word and the German definition describes the meaning of the word better. This is sandblasted on the trophy: ‘Laute hervorbringen, die durch Schließen und plötzliches Öffnen der nassen Lippen und der Zunge entstehen.’

Listen here to “Schmatzen”