Sofie Boons - UK - Growing Gems Section
Sofie Boons
Designer biography:
Dr Sofie Boons is a jeweller, researcher and Senior Lecturer in Design Crafts at the University of the West of England (UWE), where she leads the MA Designer/Maker and holds research and knowledge-exchange roles focused on sustainable education. Her practice-based PhD, Neo-gemstones®, developed in-situ crystal growth as a jewellery methodology and followed a four-year Crafts Council Research Fellowship. Her work has gained international recognition, including BBC News coverage, and has been supported by funded residencies and lectureships across the UK and Europe. Boons is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art and exhibits internationally, with work held in major collections.
Collection concept:
Neo Gemstones is an ongoing practice‑based research project that positions crystal growth as a situated craft process rather than an industrial or purely scientific one. Using low‑temperature techniques, Sofie Boons grows rubies and sapphires in-situ within and onto metal structures, allowing time, environment and material behaviour to co‑author each piece. Alongside this, she has worked with BREVALOR using photoluminescent BRG, the world first glow in the dark gemstone material, enabling jewellers to sculpt with light, demonstrating the innovation potential these materials provide. Reclaimed crystal matter and small‑scale, hands‑on processes foreground locality and material agency, while the resulting jewellery objects disrupt hierarchies.
