MELO.s are part of a project to bring the artistic process of a local artisan together with product design and digital fabrication. Developed to bring jewelry and products together in a unique way and they ask the question: can jewelry become functional as more than an artistic, decorative piece? The outcome was a collection of jewelry pieces that function not only as necklaces, but also as wireless headphones, creating a beautiful union of handicraft and technology.

I was first introduced to Trinidad Contreras to get to know her process, her work, and materials. Contreras usually had an idea and let the artistic process decide what came out in the end, while I planned the final result beforehand and set out to replicate what was in her mind. The fact that our processes were so different was something that interested her and was one of the reasons why she wanted to participate in the project, while for me, it was the her work and her artistic thinking that made me want to collaborate with her.

The spark of our project’s concept was Contreras’s interest in sound and I  introduced the idea of joining the two together by using digital fabrication techniques. By taking the aesthetic of the artisan’s previous work as a base point, I developed the shapes and electronics of wireless headphones to fit within it, creating a union between jewelry and product, and the hand made and industrially produced.