earrings: craft and culture

The Earring Show serves as a unique space that presents earrings as art, culture, and a snapshot of contemporary high-level craftsmanship. Over the past 7,000 years, earrings have acted as a window into cultural practices. At times, earrings have been used to introduce new norms into culture, at other times, culture has been expressed through earrings. The exhibition recognizes the importance of earrings throughout history in their various roles, from adornment and status markers to protest and cultural statements.

This year, the exhibition sees over 200 handmade earring submissions from around the world, made from an extensive variety of mediums. These earrings are never neutral; they express a passion for art, design, technique, a societal concern, a cultural statement, or simply the physical expression of the artist’s craft. The artwork often relays a story that speaks to a part of the maker’s identity. Through the exhibition, these unique pieces and their stories have the potential to become a part of the wearers’ own stories. This reflects one of the goals of the Show: to create shared experiences around craft between makers and wearers.

The Earring Show began as a one-day local event, and over the past 11 years, it has grown in its scope, meaning, and representation – while always acting as a contemporary reflection of craft and culture. Today, The Earring Show is a hybrid event, displaying earring submissions both at the CCBC gallery in Vancouver and online.