What is BJC Focus?

This Must be the place: October 7 & 8

The BJC Focus symposium is a free annual event that features workshops, demonstrations and presentations all centered around a particular theme. Our featured speakers are artists and intellectuals who are well-studied and acquainted with the chosen topic for the year. The symposium, while developed with jewelry and metalsmithing students and enthusiasts in mind, is free and open to the public, with something to offer everyone. The event culminates with an artistic challenge posed to our maker community: to create a new piece of work that aligns with the theme of the symposium.

Our 2023 Symposium, This Must Be The Place, will explore the complexities of place and how artists and makers utilize place, both the direct artifacts of locations and spaces, as well as the memory and imagination they can refer to, to inspire and influence their work. Our two-day symposium will feature speakers whose academic or artistic work utilizes specific references to place. Speakers will be: Demitra Thomloudis, Christina P. Day, Khanya Mthethwa, and Liesbet Bussche. We will also host a series of free workshops, each related to the symposium theme. The event will culminate with a charge to artists who will participate in our community challenge, which asks artists to create jewelry and objects that evoke a sense of place.

Join the BJC October 7 & 8, 2023 for our annual symposium. Two days of lectures, workshops, and demonstrations all focused on jewelry. Opportunities to participate online and in-person!

This symposium is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council