Lars Joosten, a jewellery designer from Belgium, explores how form, mechanics, and material can challenge and reinforce one another. What drives him most is the desire to understand, rethink, and sometimes disrupt systems. For him, jewellery is more than a wearable object: it is a bearer of tension – between function and meaning, between tradition and innovation, between the visible and the hidden mechanisms that hold everything together.
His practice is characterised by a particular focus on mechanical elements such as hinges, clasps, friction, and balance. He does not regard these technical aspects merely as practical solutions, but as formative and meaningful components. The way in which something closes, moves, or holds conveys, for him, a story about connection, value, and relationship.
The residency at DIVA offers Lars the opportunity to deepen this research in dialogue with the museum’s rich collection and archive. He is especially drawn to historical fastening mechanisms, moving parts, and functional details in jewellery and silverwork. His aim is to study forgotten or rarely used techniques and bring them back to life in a contemporary context – not by literally repeating them, but by developing new applications that fit within a modern design language.
During his residency, Lars experiments with alternative ways of fastening, closing, and wearing jewellery, without relying on the classical setting. He investigates how an object can hold, clamp, enclose, or balance, making the mechanism itself both a formal and a meaningful element. This process results in prototypes, studies, and wearable objects that emerge directly from his research.
For Lars, the residency at DIVA is more than a technical challenge: it is also an opportunity to step outside his usual ways of thinking and create space for experimentation, failure, and discovery. He regards DIVA as a laboratory for craftsmanship and imagination, where heritage and contemporary practice meet. With his residency, Lars aims to further deepen his fascination with mechanics and construction, while also raising new questions about tradition, meaning, and value in jewellery design.
 saverio sammartino.jpg)
