FRAGILITY
Aimee Howard-Clinger
United States

Fragments explores the fragility of culture and identity amid the fractures of political unrest. In recent years, escalating intolerance and prejudice—expressed through divisive rhetoric and acts of violence—have revealed how delicate our shared social fabric truly is.

These wearable sculptures embody that fragility through forms that appear fractured, broken, and isolated—remnants of something once whole. Each patterned fragment is reinforced with cement and small architectural remnants, evoking material pulled from rubble. This merging of destruction and beauty reflects our collective precarious existence—how easily what connects us can be shattered, yet how resilience and repair remain possible through awareness, empathy, and care.

Brooch « Fragments », 2025
78 x 50 x 15 mm / 200 gr
Silver, Copper, Enamel, Cement, Steel Pinback
Hand fabrication, enameling, casting

More « FRAGILITY »

Fragility – Carmen Lopez / Spain

FRAGILITYCarmen LopezSpainMy weak point is the spoon, my creative vulnerability. Sometimes I want to escape it, but it assaults my mind, invades my notebooks, my house: metal, wood, enamel, glass. With its docility, it doesn't force me to do anything—I am just an...

Fragility – Cindy Zhaohan Li / UK

FRAGILITYCindy Zhaohan-LiUnited KingdomGrowth Ribbon reflects on fragility as a generative state, where pain, transformation, and renewal coexist in the human body. I programmed the Tibetan Auspicious Ribbon Patterns into digital algorithms, transforming their...

Fragility – Cristina Celis / Mexico

FRAGILITYCristina CelisMexicoThe Last BreathFragility is the threshold where strength meets its limit, where existence reveals its most honest form.This work, made from weightless paper-thin ceramics, evokes a paradox: delicate yet tense, resilient yet on the verge of...

Fragility – Eiko Nakahara / Japan

FRAGILITYEiko NakaharaJapanThings we believed would never break often turn out to be fragile, brittle, and weak. We sometimes find beauty in broken objects or ruins. Yet even if we perceive life and beauty in fragile, weak things, witnessing the scenes of frequent...

Fragility – Joshua Kosker / USA

FRAGILITYJoshua KoskerUnited States This brooch is an exploration of time, place, and the residue of human existence. One of its components—a fragment of tile found in the ruins of Pompeii—speaks to the fragility of ancient civilizations and the lasting imprint of...

Fragility – Anne Blok / Netherlands

FRAGILITYAnne BlokNetherlandsThe fragile threads of memory Life is fragile; it is temporary and precious. This brooch tells the story of a young life, life in the bud and the rose that never reached full bloom. The brooch tells the story of a thirteen year-old girl....

Fragility – Yael Ouliel / Israel

FRAGILITYYael OulielIsraelThe union of rusted iron and 18-karat gold reveals fragility as a fundamental dimension of matter and existence. The iron, slowly eroded by rust, bears witness to vulnerability and transience, while the gold remains intact, its value unveiled...

Fragility – Isabelle Busnel / France

FRAGILITYIsabelle BusnelFranceThis work looks at fragility through two brooches made from broken jewellery found in flea markets. Each piece is partly lost and incomplete, set in soft silicone and stitched with light punch needle embroidery. The pale blue and pink...

Fragility – Danni Xu / USA

FRAGILITYDanni XuUnited StatesThis body of work emerges from a personal moment of reckoning—where fragility was not an abstract idea, but a lived, shifting condition I needed to face. These pieces trace the intimate terrain of vulnerability: the quiet, unstable edges...

Fragility – Sareh Zarghampour / Belgium

FRAGILITYSareh ZarghampourBelgiumWe give pain meaning through the moments we live with it. I explore pain not merely as a physical reaction, but as an emotional, internal state something deeply tied to human fragility. Pain is a personal and often invisible...