Journal Two: for the seeds to bloom
In June 2025, I exhibited once again with fellow artist-jewellers and Tower Collective members Michaela Barochová and Maria Stella Lydaki. Letting intuition lead, we found ourselves at another historic site – St. Anne’s Church in Limehouse, London. One of the most otherworldly of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s churches, it is currently raising funds for much-needed restoration. This year, we felt something stirring beneath the surface, ready to break through. We called the exhibition for the seeds to bloom, because it felt like that exact moment: a sprouting, a swelling, a stretch toward light.
The space within the church we chose was strange and in-between. Not the crypt, not the nave, but the passage that connects them. A kind of threshold, reimagined as a exhibition space for the first time. People usually pass through it without stopping, and many said they’d never realised it could be used in this way.
Surprisingly, what I enjoyed most was the exhibitions set-up. Over three days, we weren’t just installing work—we were absorbing the vibrant life of the church. One hour, it fills with mothers and children and a sea of buggies. The next, it’s a bible study, then choir and orchestral practice. Then a man shows up to practise his trumpet, before a fundraising event takes place in the evening. To me, it felt like a performance, with the church itself as the stage. What do they all those ‘cast members’ in common? From the outside, maybe not much. But under this roof, they become a community.
Because we were working in a space people usually pass through, we were always slightly in the way, which meant we had to tune in to the flow of the community. We coordinated with volunteers, adjusted to schedules, made space for others. Doing so deepened my understanding of community and the connection between people and place. We loved that blending, and the feeling of being a ‘guest cast members’ in this rhythm. This exhibition strengthened my trust in the way things can find their place effortlessly when you allow space for them to unfold.
Louis Thornton’s video captures the essence of the show that emerged from this process beautifully - take a look.
Timed with the first days of summer, for the seeds to bloom exhibition explored transformation, memory and renewal through contemporary jewellery and objects. Each of us brought a different voice to the same question:
What is kept? What has been shed? What might emerge anew?
Forgiveness and Patience
For this exhibition, I made several new pieces using electroforming – a technique of depositing copper onto objects by passing electricity through a solution of copper sulphate and sulfuric acid.
The Forgiveness and Patience wall piece, is a reflection on forgiveness – a theme that’s been on my mind this year. I found the long thin tree branch near the church and it reminded me of a human figure with little hands longing to be held. Two distinct root-like pathways rise together, like forgiveness and patience moving alongside each other towards the shared destination on top – peace. I electroformed the points where the branch splits, to highlight moments of choice, divergence, and growth. The top of the wall piece, made from a eucalyptus leaf, is detachable and becomes a wearable lapel pin, waiting with anticipation to be taken on another adventure on a human body. In some cultures eucalyptus represents the connection between the underworld, earth, and heaven. In my sculpture , it signifies the shift that occurs when forgiveness is granted – the moment new, peaceful energy begins to sprout, forming a connection to the heavens.
Untitled
This piece came from a matching pair of branches found in different places. I was struck by how similarly they split at certain points and chose to emphasise those corresponding sections by depositing copper through electroforming. The process required a complex setup – multiple wires connected to each point to guide the metal exactly where I wanted it.
Just as I was about to snap off the connecting wires, the piece revealed itself as finished – tangled, almost like an electric fence. I couldn’t help but see the two branches as people, much like in my Forgiveness and Patience wall piece – strangely personified.
I left it untitled to create space for personal interpretation. Viewers often connect the work instinctively to human relationships – some see codependency or emotional strain, others a deep and growing bond.
Unearthed
A week before the show, I found a dry, uprooted plant in a planter outside my home. Something about it caught my attention – fragile, defeated, maybe dug up from the ground by a fox, yet strangely beautiful to me. I preserved it through electroforming and titled the sculpture Unearthed. I added clear topaz briolettes to represent the lingering essence still flowing within. Inverted, its tangled roots now reach for the sky, while its branches rest against the ground – an unexpected reversal of roles. I’m not sure why I picked it up. Maybe I felt sorry for it. Maybe I saw something of myself in it. I’ve always been drawn to the abandoned, the overlooked, the forgotten – to the hidden flow of life where none is expected. Each time I pass the planter and see the plants that stayed rooted, still growing, still doing what plants do, I think about the nature of life, how people follow different paths. What causes one to be uprooted while others remain? Chance? Destiny? A shift in the wind?
The Holy Bee and the Bloomsbury Bee
Last year, for the exhibition at St. Augustine’s Tower, I electroformed moths I found inside the building. This time, ahead of for the seeds to bloom, I discovered a dead bumblebee outside St. Anne’s Church. When I told fellow jeweller Romilly Saumarez Smith the story, she responded, “Holy bee!” – which instantly became the title.
As with the moths, I gave my bees stones to hold. The bumblebee was given a raw emerald to cradle in her tiny hands, and a faceted emerald was set on her back – a gesture toward the transformative power bees hold. They are so small, so fragile, yet irreplaceable in our food systems and ecosystems. The Bloomsbury Bee, carries a teardrop-shaped sapphire – the same blue as the Piccadilly line I took just before finding her near Russell Square station, lifeless on the ground.
Moth, the Astronaut
One of the moths I found at St. Augustine’s Tower now crowns an electroformed root-like branch – a piece I never titled. I’m struck by how something so light and delicate can also feel strong. To me, it feels like a rocket: resting yet ready to launch, to shoot into space but… maybe unsure of its destination?
I’ve always imagined these moths as travellers on their way to the afterlife, with the copper I deposit on them serving as a kind of armour. I think this one is an astronaut! An explorer prepared to venture beyond this planet, carrying with it the courage of those who leave the familiar for the unknown – symbolised by the two clear topaz stones I embedded in its wings. Perhaps I felt much like this moth back in 2011, when I left Poland at 18 and set out into unfamiliar lands. Where that courage came from, I have no idea.
Rebirth
I’m drawn to moments when endings open into new beginnings. In my Rebirth collection I use crushed pearls as symbols of renewal. I reshape and reimagine them into new forms – rising from pearl-ashes like a phoenix. They speak to how personal struggle, pain, and loss can become the very ground where growth and self-knowledge take root. For me, it is a return to the self – a reconnection with our inner life force and the beauty that blooms from it.
In the end, the exhibition became an act of alignment – with each other, with the space, and with the unseen rhythms that move things forward. Unforced, we followed the energy, trusted the timing, and let the work take root where it was meant to.
St. Anne’s Church is lovingly cared for by the church community, along with Care for St Anne’s – a charitable trust established to support a major building conservation programme under the Hawksmoor 300 campaign. A portion of our sales at the exhibition was donated in support of the restoration project.
Tower Collective
Tower Collective is formed by three London-based artist-jewellers – Karolina Brodnicka, Michaela Barochová and Maria Stella Lydaki. They are committed to creating immersive jewellery and art exhibitions that offer moments of peace while bridging past and present, all set within overlooked and historic spaces.
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Can you help us find future venues?
We’re dreaming up future exhibitions in other unique spaces — somewhere with soul and story. Do you know of any hidden or underutilised venues in London, elsewhere in the UK, or abroad?
Please email your suggestions to karolina.brodnicka@gmail.com.
Pictures by Sveety K. Video by Louis Thornton.