Marina Elenskaya is the co-founder and the creative director of Current Obsession — a magazine and platform based in the Netherlands. She directs Jewellery in Culture Foundation, Munich Jewellery Week, OBSESSED! Jewellery Festival and other projects by Current Obsession.

Elenskaya visits Aotearoa from Amsterdam. She will deliver a lecture at Objectspace and a professional development session, along with a series of visits with makers and galleries across the country.

Expanding on 'Radical Surface', the main research topic of their upcoming magazine issue, Current Obsession will offer quarterly in-person magazine activations, followed by the release of a printed chapter. The first activation, titled 'Donning the Surface of the Other', will occur in April in Aotearoa. It explores the idea of a shared spiritual essence between all living things and how our own energy can coalesce with that of natural materials through adornment.

This sub-theme investigates the transformative power of natural materials like fibres, clay, stone, bone, shell, all considered by Māori to have wairua (a living soul) that comes into contact with the wearer when donned.

Elenskaya's current practice combines her training in television and radio direction, jewellery design, and design research, writing and criticism — blending her interests in storytelling, curating and interdisciplinary collaboration.

At Current Obsession, she researches adornment — jewellery, fashion artefacts, AR face filters, makeup, body modifications, as key cultural and personal signifiers. For the past ten years, she has been involved in developing experimental and interdisciplinary discourse in contemporary jewellery, publishing and facilitating opportunities for designers.

Despite her current practice away from the workbench, she still considers herself a maker, with deep understanding and passion for fabrication processes, techniques and materials — involved in both physical and digital jewellery-making.

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Marina Elenskaya visits Aotearoa through support from Objectspace and Creative New Zealand.