bio:

Militsa Milenkova is an artist, designer and maker based in Glasgow, specialising in silversmithing and jewellery. She creates objects and wearables as a means of communicating her thoughts and feelings. Her work is influenced by her surroundings and personal experiences and focuses on themes such as family, immigration and cultural identity while celebrating things that often go unnoticed. She is interested in the contrast between the emotional and material value of human possessions and the stories these can tell. Through the use of pre - existing objects as a reference, she creates work which challenges the notion of value and poses the question of what is considered precious and why. In her practice, she explores various concepts that intrigue her, while triggering her creativity by experimenting with different materials and processes.

statement:

Notes to remember things / jewellery to remember people. While going through my late grandfather’s belongings, I found some notes he kept in his wallet. A post-it note with Greek sentences I had written in Bulgarian letters to help him answer the door while he stayed with us in Greece, a year before his passing, which reads: is not here, is here. A note with my late grandmother’s details that he kept long after she died and a ticket to his village from what was likely his last visit. Finding these and seeing that he carried them with him every day, even after they were no longer useful, felt deeply moving to me. I transformed them into something I can now carry with me too.