I graduated from the Cambridge Regional College in 2013 with the Best at Show award for the the final project. Despite the fact that I was introduced to many new creative techniques and forms of expression through photography, drawing, mixed-media approach and painting, I created a collection of statement crocheted jewellery.

Soon after, when I had already secured a place at the School of Jewellery, I promised myself to leave crochet to the side and focus on something new, as I was already familiar with this technique and wanted to move forward.

Well... it took me another three years to experiment and test and eventually create another crocheted jewellery collection that can be found here.
 

Aelita has been always fascinated about a transformation of non-precious materials into detailed and aesthetically pleasing handmade objects. She finds the prospect of giving a completely new life to discarded materials exciting. Searching for an inspiration in the city of Gdansk in Poland, Aelita was inspired by bin bags exposed in a row opposite the windows of the house. 

photo credit: aelita

They created a certain composition and a dialogue between themselves and the place where they were kept for some time. It became a starting point for Aelita to think about a notion of a beauty and what it means - do the materials themselves always dictate a status of appreciation of the objects. Furthermore, how does the beauty relate to the body and where does it sit. Aelita decided to use bin bags as her initial material and, soon after, some used bicycle inner tubes from a local shop in Cambridge were also added to the list. Plastic bottles and hoses were used to add some practical elements to the construction of the jewellery. Forms were inspired by a sea life ecosystem where, unfortunately, a lot of plastic waste is found. Through a combination of materials that are widely used by humans in daily lives, the intention was to show how close and often inseparably both natural and unnatural worlds exist in cohabitation with each other - sophisticated yet harmful.