# @aicccreators on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DdtoDBvDXMP
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70816286-aicccreators-instagram
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- **Posted:** 2026-09-25T14:00:53.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** AI/CC ::Artificial Intelligence Creative Community (@aicccreators) — https://gondola.cc/aicccreators

## Caption

AMALGAM | FEATURED ARTIST — VALERIA BENALCÁZAR SOLA

As part of our ongoing editorial series highlighting selected artists from AMALGAM: Contemporary Jewellery in Hybrid Systems, we introduce Valeria Benalcázar — an Ecuadorian contemporary jewellery artist and designer whose practice explores the transformative possibilities of matter.

With a background in art restoration and an MA in Jewellery from Birmingham City University, Valeria brings together traditional craftsmanship, scientific curiosity and experimental material research. Her fascination with organic structures, microscopic life and vital cycles informs a practice where jewellery becomes a space for investigating how materials grow, react, mutate and transform.

Experimentation lies at the heart of her process. Silver and gemstones meet organic elements, polymers and biomaterials, creating hybrid forms suspended between the natural and the artificial, permanence and ephemerality. Each material test becomes part of a living archive through which Valeria deconstructs and reimagines the world through tactile and sensory experience.

For AMALGAM, Valeria presents Aguas Fértiles (Fertile Waters) — a collection shaped by ideas of gestation, growth and motherhood. Cornstarch-based bioplastics, eco-resin, pigments, glass crystals, zircons and crushed semi-precious stones form what she describes as a “precious tissue”, where organic and mineral matter appear to merge into a luminous, almost sentient surface.

At the heart of the collection is the metaphor of the womb as a vast, powerful ocean. Corals, seeds, botanical structures and imagined creatures form an intimate ecosystem, translating bodily transformation and the emergence of new life into wearable art.

“Fertile Waters materializes a state of becoming—where matter mutates, grows, and inherently holds the power to generate life.” — Valeria Benalcázar

Directed by Ema Marinova ema_mrnv 
Curated by Valeria Del Vacchio valeria.del.vacchio 

AI/CC — Official Cultural & Curatorial Partner, AI & Digital Showcase

#AICC #AMALGAM  #ClusterContemporaryJewellery #LondonDesignFestival #ContemporaryJewellery

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## Tags

contemporaryjewellery, londondesignfestival, clustercontemporaryjewellery, amalgam, aicc

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