Realtional Ground
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Liza Zazimko
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Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2025.
Bachelor Interior Architecture & Furniture Design.
The thesis explores how jewelry, as a medium of object design, can serve as a speculative tool for addressing questions of identity, belonging, and social cohesion in Estonia’s linguistically diverse society. The project emerges from a personal dissonance: being a Russian-speaking Estonian and navigating a sense of belonging shaped by language, history, and cultural perception. While Estonia promotes democratic values and civic unity, subtle divisions remain. Language often acts as an artificial barrier - a marker of loyalty or a source of prejudice, rooted in collective memory and historical traumatic experience
To understand these dynamics, the research examines Estonia’s history to trace the roots of its current social fabric. It then looks at state-led integration programs, evaluating the efforts already made toward a more inclusive society. Finally, the study considers how art can operate as a mechanism for change, reaching spaces where policy may not.
The outcome is not only a physical collection but a conceptual framework: design as a relational act that builds common ground. Rather than offering definitive solutions, the work holds complexity and invites dialogue. It asks what it means to coexist across differences, and how objects can serve as quiet, daily gestures of trust and mutual recognition in a divided yet hopeful landscape.
The result is a collection of wearable pieces that reflect Estonia’s divides.
Rather than offering definitive solutions, the work holds complexity and invites dialogue. It asks what it means to coexist across differences, and how objects can serve as quiet, daily gestures of trust and mutual recognition in a divided yet hopeful landscape.
