Dahye Jeong is the recipient of the 2022 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, which recognises significant contributions to the development of contemporary craft. Jeong’s winning work, A Time of Sincerity (2021), takes the form of a basket made from horsehair, made using a 500-year-old hat-making technique which had previously thought to be a lost skill in Korea. She was praised by the jury for her reviving of this age-old tradition, as well as for the delicate lightness of the resulting sculpture. An exhibition featuring Jeong’s work and that of the other 30 shortlisted artists for the prize is on view at the recently opened Seoul Museum of Craft Art through 31 July.
The prize was started in 2016 by Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson to celebrate innovation in crafts, spanning ceramics, jewellery, textiles, woodwork, glass, metalwork, furniture, papercraft and lacquer. Administered by the Foundation, it is meant as a tribute to the fashion brand’s beginnings in 1846, as a collective craft workshop. ‘Craft is the essence of LOEWE. As a house, we are about craft in the purest sense of the word,’ said Anderson in a statement.
