BIO
Born and currently living in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
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Laila Marie Costa is a multidisciplinary artist working across jewellery, assemblage, collage, performance, installation and sound. She sporadically produces zines, curates exhibitions and makes music.
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Pondering the drama, banality and absurdity of life, Costa collects materials from the urban environment of the privileged, late neoliberal society. Objects and debris are gleaned from the street, spotted in second-hand shops, collected from household waste and rescued from recycling bins. Meticulously cleaned and sorted, they come together with a ‘Do It Yourself’ approach and a wry sense of humour. It aspires to motivate dialogue about jewellery and its place in the contemporary arts ecosystem.
Parallely, she’s inspired by her neuro diversity, her Italian heritage, punk rock, social justice issues, cis white female positionality, menopause, art her/story, politics, traditional artisanal skills, environmental issues & various writers.
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EDUCATION
2023 Master of Visual Arts (MASieraad: Jewellery Design), Hogeschool PXL-MAD, Hasselt, Belgium
2003 Graduate Diploma of Visual Arts, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1992 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne
PROFESSIONAL ENGAGEMENT
2018- Co-founder and director of TempContemp gallery: Bricks and mortar gallery space August 2018 until November 2019, and since, a Nomadic Project Space
2019-20 Artist Mentor, Arts Access Victoria, Arts and Disability, Melbourne
2015-21 Studio artist at jewellery studio, Northcity4, Brunswick, Melbourne
2015-20 Curator, Urban Campfires Community Arts Project, Belgium Avenue Neighbourhood House, Richmond, Melbourne
2006-15 Sessional teacher at Art and Design, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne
2012-15 Gallery consultant, Studio Ingot, Fitzroy, Melbourne
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Contemporary Wearables ’25 Biennial Jewellery Award & Exhibition, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, QLD, AU. Finalist
Trove: Contemporary Jewellery, Craft, Watson Place, Naarm/Melbourne, AU
C***s & C***S (Pride Amsterdam Week), The Wearhouse, Amsterdam, NL
Secret, Sacred & Scattered, DIVA Diamond Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
The Four Chances, Biromiro Kiosk, Munich (Munich Jewellery Week ’25)
A Piece of Peace, Westend Apotheek, Munich (Munich Jewellery Week ’25) & Studio_Wearhouse, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lost in Migration, online exhibition curated by Elena Karpilova (Munich Jewellery Week ’25)
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2024 Sweet Glimpse, The Grass is Unbelievably Warm, Seattle, U.S.A.
I Paint Flowers So They Will Not Die, Galleria Carlo Lucidi, Rome, Italy (November)
Face It, Galerie Pont & Plas, Ghent, Belgium
Performa 6, Vonk Centrale, Hasselt, Belgium
Jewellers at Large - an Old-Fashioned Slide Night, Kelvin Club, , Melbourne, Australia (part of Radiant Pavilion). Curated by Anna Davern
Re:Play, Mycelium Studios, Brunswick East, Melbourne, Australia
30th Anniversary: Department of Jewellery Design, Gold & silversmithing, Hogeschool PXL-MAD, Hasselt, Belgium
Ressur-ACT, Westend Apotheek, Munich Jewellery Week, Germany
Particle(s), MAD Brussels, Brussels Jewellery Week, Brussels, Belgium
Wearing RED; Ignite the Fire, Charon Kransen Arts, Patina Gallery, Santa Fe New Mexico, U.S.A
2023 In Flux, Liesbeth den Besten’s Cabinet, Amstelveen, Netherlands
Wearing RED; Ignite the Fire, Charon Kransen Arts, New York City (as part of NYC Jewelry Week 2023)
Show Us Yours, We’ll Show Them, Kalf. Space, Hasselt, Belgium
International Graduate Show, Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Salon De Lavage, FAX, Hasselt, Belgium
Exit Extended 2023, Multiple, Hasselt, Belgium
MASieraad Masters Graduate Exhibition, Looiersgracht 60 , Amsterdam. Netherlands
Show You What We Got, Galerij De Ware Vrienden, Hasselt, Belgium
Contained/Uncontained (with Handshake Project and Dialogue Collective), Nelson Jewellery Week, Nelson, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Potluck: Burp, Alte-Westend-Apotheke, Munich Jewellery Week, Munich, Germany
2022 A Word After a Word, Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, U.S.A
PotLuck, Alte-Westend-Apotheke, Munich Jewellery Week, Munich, Germany
Containment/Uncontained; working across borders - HSDCTC-colab, Pah Homestead, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. HSDCTC-colab is a collaboration project between artist groups HANDSHAKE (NZ), Dialogue Collective (UK) and TempContemp (AU)
2021 Handshake Project, Te Pah Homestead, Auckland, New Zealand
Jewellery and Nature, Tincallab, Porto, Portugal
Beijing International Jewellery Art Exhibition, Beijing, China
Double Yellow Lines Contemporary Jewelry about borders: geographical, political, cultural, Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair & Winzavod Contemporary Art Center, Moscow, Russia
Hearts and Flowers, Brooklyn Metal Works, New York City, U.S.A
Dlug – Dlog, Udstillingssted for Tekstil, Copenhagen, Denmark
2020 SeaShape, Cook St Gallery, Flinders, Australia
Noel Counihan Commerative Art Award (finalist), The Counihan Gallery, Brunswick, Australia
Chinese Mythology, Vonmo Studio, Beijing, China
9 March, Ground Solyanka, Moscow, 9 March; Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts, Chelyabinsk and Exhibition Centre of St. Petersburg Union of Artists, St. Petersburg, Russia
Growth & Evolution, Yesheng Art & Design Center, Shanghai & DBC International Designer Space, Beijing, China
2019 Schmuck, Internationale Handwerksmesse, Munich, Germany
Body Control, Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, The Netherlands
Collectiva, Porto, Portugal
SeaShape, Vitrine, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Friends and Family, Daine Singer Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
In The Drawer, Small Space Gallery, Nth. Fitzroy (part of Radiant Pavilion Biennial)
NC4EVA, The Counihan Gallery foyer, Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
2018 #fail #success, Icons at Play, New York City Jewellery Week, New York, U.S.A
Do you Copy? TempContemp, Melbourne, Australia
I Hate Contemporary Jewellery, TempContemp, Melbourne, Australia
SeaShape, Bridget Kennedy project Space, East Sydney, Australia
14 Benches and One Overworked Microwave, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 The Mindful Bricoleur and the Various Mid Life Parallel Universe that may or may not include Wearables, Black Finch, Northcote, Melbourne, Australia
2017 RUN LMC Collection, Gallery 20/17, North Sydney, Sydney, Australia
2016 Random Acts of Necklace, Small Space Jewellery, North Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Who’s Afraid of Blue, White and Yellow? H & H Plating, Melbourne, Australia (part of Radiant Pavilion Biennial)
AWARDS, GRANTS and RESIDENCIES
2025 City of Yarra, Sustainability Arts Grant, Melbourne, AU
2024 Flanders Art Institute, Residency Funding, Flanders, Belgium
2024 DIVA Diamond Museum , Antwerp, Belgium. Three-month Artist in Residence
2024 Erasmus Traineeship, five months with jeweler Ralph Bakker, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2020 Creative Victoria, Sustaining Creative Worker Grant
2019 Moreland City Council, Arts Investment Grant
2016 Italian Australian Foundation Fellowship, International Specialised Skills Institute
2014 Study grant, International Lab of Communication, Ente Friuli nel Mondo, Gemona, Italy
COLLECTIONS
Bailieu Library, The University of Melbourne Box Hill Institute of T.A.F.E
Brunswick Business Incubator Octapod, Newcastle
Rare Books, State Library of Victoria Private Collections internationally
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Studio Ingot, Melbourne, Australia
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