Jamie Kroeger’s A Part of Place

Jamie Kroeger is a prairie farm kid turned mountain girl who relies on wilderness, science and culture for ideas and motivation. By means of a multidisciplinary approach, she translates the relationship between people and their environment into object based narratives, using an integration of material, process and concept to further portray the story.

After education in the Environmental Science field and with the Canadian Avalanche Association, Jamie chose to embark on an entirely different career path. She graduated from the Alberta College of Art + Design (Jewellery + Metals major, BFA with Distinction) in Calgary, Canada (2017) and was a student in the Jewellery and Silversmithing department at the Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland (2015).
Most recently, she has completed a Masters of Fine Art in Medium and Material Based studies at the Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo, Oslo, Norway. She is currently teaching full time in the Jewellery + Metals department at the Alberta University of the Arts, in Calgary, while maintaining her own personal practice here in Golden, BC. Her jewellery artwork has been exhibited internationally as well as within Canada.

About the exhibit, Jamie writes:

“We often rely on science and economics to delineate the relationships that exist between components of an ecosystem. Value is generated by concrete statistics or data, but often doesn’t take into consideration the valuable aspects of observation, storytelling, transfer of knowledge, emotional connection, religion and belief. My work is a visual exploration that outlines another facet of understanding our (the humans) place within the natural world. The objects created, and what they represent to myself and others, have the potential to question the way and tell the story of how society, specific cultures and individuals value the outside environments they choose, or inherently inhabit.

“This collection of work (created over six years of art education) is based primarily on observations, stories and my own lived experiences with the outdoors. Retreating to indoor workshops allowed the opportunity to reflect on my time spent outside and realize that all the highs and lows it brought, fundamentally affected how I make art and approach the problem-solving situations within it. Through material, process and concept, I research what solidifies a relationship with the natural world, but also how the changing ideas of “place” have the ability to transform individuals into compassionate communities, believing nature is integral to well-being.