Teresa Dantas, ESAD's former student in Jewellery degree, was the winner of the 2014 edition of New Traditional Jewellery - International Design Contest, in the category Professionals.

For every edition of New Traditional Jewellery an inspiring theme is chosen. Participants are challenged to reshape historical or traditional jewellery. They do not submit just a design, but also pictures and information. This year theme was Confrontations. It may carry different meanings: on a grand scale — climate changes, distribution of wealth, waste management, for example — or in a private inner dialogue: there is a lot we are confronted with.

With the piece Phoenix — made in burned rubber, sand, thread and silver — Teresa Dantas portrays our proclivity for evil. It is part of man, something natural that can reveal itself when we are confronted with different convictions. The inspiration photograph submitted shows how far this can go: We are confronted with burning tires, garbage cans, destruction, fire and violence, Dantas enumerates, I process the remains. Everything is black. But there is also hope: for me this is represented by the subtlety and the softness of the material.