Jivan Astfalck is a visual artist, jeweller and academic. Born in Berlin, where she trained as a goldsmith, she has been living in London for more than 40 years, returning to Berlin regularly.

She earned her PhD in Fine Art at the University of the Arts London and is now Professor Emeritus at Birmingham City University (BCU), where she previously taught at the world-renowned School of Jewellery. She is a Visiting Professor at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing, alongside numerous other teaching and consulting projects in China.

Prof. Astfalck combines her studio practice, which she exhibits internationally, with creative development and management of projects like Polyphonous, Whispers&Cries, and kittenhair.

Her focus and research interests are in using hermeneutic philosophy, literary theory, and other appropriate thought models as tools to investigate narrative structures embedded in

body-related craft objects. In her view, the convergence of crafts, design and fine art practices is conducive to extending the theoretical vocabulary and mapping out new territories where crafts practices contribute to cultural production and dissemination.

“Jewellery for me is unique expression of embedded and g(c)rafted narrative, intimately related to the body - both, sensually and intellectually.”