Collaborative Beaded Collar-Making with Sayo Ota

Overview

Each bead carries its own material history, shaped by its production method, place of origin, and cultural memory. When brought together, they reveal connections, differences, and complex entanglements. Through the history of beads and collective making, this workshop explores how materials, time, and individual experiences can coexist and form new relationships. Using vintage beads sourced in Greenland and also Sayo’s homeland of Japan, participants will learn about traditional Greenlandic beaded collars, and the foundational technique of net stitching. Through sharing about regional histories and engaging in handcraft as a shared language, participants will consider how each bead is a token of its own passage.

All levels welcome, all supplies included. After the second day of the workshop, a reception in honor of Sayo’s time spent at 92NY will follow.

Sayo Ota, the Jewelry Center's current Artist in Residence, is an emerging artist and trained goldsmith from Japan working at the intersection of contemporary art, craft, and material-based research. Her practice engages materials as carriers of cultural memory and historical entanglement, with a particular focus on transnational exchange and the Arctic. She holds an MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts and a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. IG @sayo_ota