ORIGIN

Formed by a Glacier, each item of Garogosi Jewellery is unique.  It captures a snapshot in time - a brief moment of poised ice - now passed, melted, eroded and lost. 
The creation technique involves a mould being taken directly from the surface of a Glacier, along with its GPS location. This process is unique and has taken years to perfect. No heat is emitted, no trace is left, and no damage is caused to the Glacier.  
Garogosi preserves a momentary fingerprint from the surface of a Glacier. Having shaped our landscape for millennia, they now shape these rustic and powerful items of jewellery – locking forever, one of the most impermanent forces of the natural world.

THE BEGINNING OF GAROGOSI

In 2014, the London born Welsh / Armenian multidisciplinary artist Sevan Garo, was asked to create a series of sculptures for an exhibition in The Hague, Holland, entitled 'Your Engagement has Consequences'. At the time, Sevan was based in London. When I heard the title of the exhibition", he explains, "I immediately thought - GLACIERS." 

Sevan planned to take moulds from the surface of a glacier, and to cast these moulds into a series of sculptures. These would capture and preserve the form and fingerprint of the glacier. Glaciers are retreating at an incredible pace around the world, so these sculptures perfectly depicted one of the consequences of our engagement with the environment.

He travelled to the Alps with some friends with the intention of taking a mould from the surface of one of the most iconic glaciers in Europe, Mer de Glacé, or 'Sea of Ice'. He had never been on a glacier before, let alone taken a mould from the surface of one. He had also been told that the mould would not set on ice. "All I had was the materials for the mould, and an old ice axe. I had no idea if it was going to work." 

He planned to use a unique blend of materials that had to set for 24 hours after casting the mould, hoping that this would work on the ice. However, this also meant that it had to be left overnight. "It was one thing going up there the first time, but on the second day a storm had come in, so that was a whole new level. But we couldn't just leave the mould up there. When we finally made it back up to where we'd left it, we could see it had all been worth it. The glacier had shed the mould like a skin, leaving a perfect fingerprint of the ice."

Three months later, Sevan was in The Hague installing his sculptures for the exhibition. He had produced six large glacial sculptures, cast in pure white pigment and geological material.

"I turned my back and suddenly heard a large smash. I knew straight away what it was." One of the sculptures had fallen off the wall and smashed into hundreds of small pieces.

"There was nothing I could do so I just began clearing up the broken glacier sculpture. While I was clearing up, I held one of the small pieces of shattered sculpture in my hand. I thought 'this would make a really interesting and conceptual piece of wearable sculpture.'" That piece was the Original Glacier Necklace and was the beginning of GAROGOSI Studio.

"My intention was to make a few necklaces to get the money together to cast the glacier sculptures in bronze. At the time, I would never have considered going down the road of starting a jewellery brand."

While Sevan had no formal training in jewellery, his skills and experience with the manipulation of materials and metals as an artist and sculptor lent themselves easily to GAROGOSI’s creation. "I had never made a necklace, ring, cuff or bracelet before, and had never cast with silver or gold, but I knew the basic principles of casting. I also had no idea about developing a brand and setting up a small business. But I thought, why not, let's give this a shot." 

Three months later, Sevan had made a full collection of wearable glacial sculptures including Rings, Necklaces, Cuffs and Bangles. A month after that, he launched GAROGOSI in London and moved to the Alps to develop the brand and capture as many moulds as possible from Glaciers and Mountains. The studio has over 200 geological artifact moulds from mountain summits and glaciers from all over the world.

GAROGOSI STUDIO AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Every piece of GAROGOSI wearable sculpture is made by Sevan, the artist behind GAROGOSI.  Each one is made in the studio in Chamonix or South Wales. There are no conveyor belts or industrial machinery, only Sevan and his tools.

GAROGOSI only ever uses 100 % recycled Silver and Gold. Every stone we use is lab-grown. Physically, chemically and optically identical to mined gems, but without the environmental cost. No open pits. No displaced communities. No compromise on carbon footprint. Just a better way to make something that lasts forever..

Every piece is made by me, by hand, one at a time. From when I first step on the mountain to the finished piece in your hands, the integrity and spirit of the landscape never leaves the work. The mountain and its environment are always treated with respect and dignity.

Each piece is a conversation starter. About where we belong in the natural world, and what that means to each of us, in different ways. They’re about how we see the landscape, and how we see ourselves reflected within it. The mountains have always drawn us in, in ways that are wonderfully hard to explain.

We Are Our Mountains

No relationship has shaped Garogosi more profoundly than the one forged with Kenton Cool, Britain's most accomplished Himalayan mountaineer and the first person to summit Everest 19 times! Kenton is our ambassador and a kindred spirit in the truest sense. He has taken moulds in places few humans have ever stood: the summit of Everest, K2 and the frozen wilderness of Antarctica. Our partnership is built on a shared reverence for the mountains, nature and our place within them and a share an urgency to capture something of them before they are gone and i’m honoured to call him a friend.

Listen to our conversation on his podcast here: