Naturalesa at the IX Exhibition · Contemporary Goldsmithery, Madrid 2025
Four pieces. Two museums. One of Naturalesa's first major exhibitions
In 2025, four pieces by Marina Berdila, founder and jewelry designer behind Naturalesa, were selected for the IX Exhibition · Contemporary Goldsmithery, organised by the Association of Contemporary Jewelry and Goldsmithing Designers (AdOC) in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas in Madrid.
The ninth edition brought together 68 designers from 26 countries, presenting original and previously unpublished works across a specialised itinerary of nine cultural venues throughout Madrid.
Three Naturalesa pieces were exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas. A fourth, Food Chain, was presented at the Museo Cerralbo.
For a young independent jewelry studio, it was an important early milestone, and one of the first moments when Naturalesa entered a wider international contemporary jewelry context.
From the Naturalesa workbench to Madrid
The four selected pieces were created during the earliest stages of Naturalesa, while Marina was transitioning from a career in architecture and sustainable interior design into jewelry design.
Although very different in form and material, the pieces already contained ideas that would continue to shape the work of Naturalesa:
nature as more than decoration.
jewelry as a form of communication.
the relationship between what we value and what we take for granted.
our connection with the natural world and our responsibility towards it.
Each piece approached those questions differently.
The Four Selected Pieces
Portable Vessel
18k gold-plated brass · preserved moss
Portable Vessel began with a simple question: what do we consider precious?
A piece of preserved moss: something ordinary, fragile and easily overlooked, is placed inside a structure made from a material traditionally associated with value and permanence.
The contrast is intentional. We protect, display and assign value to certain materials while taking the natural world around us for granted.
Here, the jewelry becomes a small vessel for something that might otherwise be overlooked, suggesting that perhaps nature itself is one of the most precious things we have.
Elderberry Network
18k gold-plated brass · garnet · black onyx · stainless steel
Elderberry Network is about connection, especially the connections we cannot immediately see.
Inspired by the structure of an elderberry cluster, the piece explores how individual elements can appear separate while actually belonging to a larger system.
It became an early exploration of a recurring idea in my work: we are rarely as separate as we think we are. Nature is full of invisible relationships, networks and dependencies, and our own lives are no different.
What looks like a collection of individual parts can, from another perspective, become one interconnected whole.
Raíz Ring
Sterling silver 925
Raíz was inspired by barnacles and their ability to hold firmly to the Mediterranean shore while adapting to a constantly changing environment.
I became fascinated by the way they attach themselves to rocks, irregular, imperfect forms that survive by finding a place to hold on.
That became a metaphor for grounding.
We live in a world that constantly asks us to move faster, change direction and keep up. Raíz asks the opposite: What is your anchor? What keeps you connected to yourself when everything around you is moving?
A small reminder to slow down, find your roots and hold on to what matters. Find your anchor.
Food Chain
Sterling silver 925 · recycled plastic
Exhibited at Museo Cerralbo
Food Chain looks at the relationship between human consumption and the natural world.
Plastic is one of the most visible traces of our everyday choices, yet once we throw something away, it doesn't simply disappear. It moves through ecosystems, enters marine life and can eventually return to us through the food chain.
I wanted to create a piece where the beauty of the jewelry could sit alongside something uncomfortable: the evidence of what we leave behind.
The work asks us to look beyond the object itself and consider the consequences of our choices, and the kind of legacy we are creating.
A first step into a wider conversation
Looking back, the IX Exhibition · Contemporary Goldsmithery marked an important transition for Naturalesa.
These were pieces made while I was still finding my way from architecture into jewelry design. They began at the workbench, during the early stages of a completely new chapter, and suddenly they were being shown in museums in Madrid alongside the work of designers from around the world.
Three pieces entered the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas. Another entered the Museo Cerralbo.
For me, that changed something.
Jewelry was no longer only something I was making in my studio. It had entered a wider conversation: about nature, value, connection, responsibility and the role a small wearable object can play in carrying an idea.
It was one of the first signs that Naturalesa could travel further than the studio. And it was only the beginning.