Maud De Rijck · Carl's sister
"Les oubliées du Nobel" - L'Echo, summer 2023
During the summer of 2023, the newspaper L'Echo paid tribute to the "forgotten women of the Nobel Prize": six remarkable women to whom Maud De Rijck dedicated her bracelet collection. Six articles by Simon Brunfaut, published weekly from 22 July to 26 August 2023, each devoted a full page to a laureate and the bracelet created in her honour: Marie Curie (22/07), Nadine Gordimer (29/07), Rigoberta Menchú (05/08), Ada Yonath (12/08), May-Britt Moser (19/08) and Esther Duflo (26/08).
"I wanted to help make these invisible women more visible, without taking a militant approach. I wanted to connect these women across time and space. For each of the fields honoured by the Academy, I chose a prominent female figure, knowing that very few women have received the Nobel Prize." (Maud De Rijck, L'Echo, 22 July 2023)
Each bracelet is made of aluminium - a simple, basic, lightweight material whose striking physical presence on the body underlines why these women were awarded the Nobel Prize. An approach of contemplation, meditation and return to our origins: "rediscovering the ancestral side, taking part in this idea of doing with less".
29 juillet 2023, Nadine Gordimer
On 29 July 2023, L'Écho devoted its Culture page to the series "Les oubliées du Nobel" (The forgotten women of the Nobel Prize): "This summer, L'Echo pays tribute to the forgotten women of the Nobel Prize. Six remarkable women to whom architect and jewellery designer Maud De Rijck is dedicating a collection of bracelets. This Saturday: Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer, friend of Nelson Mandela."
In the article signed by Simon Brunfaut, the newspaper repeats the observation behind the collection: "with only 58 women prizewinners since its creation, the Nobel Academy counts barely 6% of women laureates. A figure that falls to 2% in the sciences."
About the bracelet dedicated to Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize in Literature, Maud explains: "Here I wanted to work mainly on colour to evoke her fight: I used a grey mass, precisely to avoid black and white. I also wanted to use a semi-precious stone: pyrite, a very common mineral found in many types of rock. I deliberately chose to highlight a fairly common and easily accessible stone, as opposed to the extraction of certain more precious stones which physically endangers people and recalls domination, exploitation and inequality."
L'Écho, « Culture », samedi 29 juillet 2023, page 39 - article : Simon Brunfaut, encadré : S. B., portrait Nadine Gordimer : Photo News, photo Maud De Rijck : Antoine Weber / Hans Lucas, bracelet : Maud De Rijck - archives familiales
Sources: L'Echo, « Les oubliées du Nobel », série de six articles par Simon Brunfaut, juillet-août 2023