Sofie Boons

As Senior Lecturer in Design Crafts, Sofie is currently reviewing the embedding of Craft and Design skills across the School of Art, teaching on a variety of programmes, whilst working towards the development of a new Postgraduate course in the subject. Furthermore, Sofie is supporting Will Grant (Associate Director for Postgraduate Taught Provision), with the development and execution of a Business Case reviewing, streamlining, and expanding SoA postgraduate provision.

Sofie is studying towards a PhD and her supervisory team includes Dr Sarah Bodman, David Huson and Dr Laura Morgan. In her research she is investigating the design implications, possibilities, and limits of utilising man-made crystals in the development of jewellery designs. To support her research, she successfully secured funding from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), after which she was successfully awarded a Mary Somerville-Lehrauftragsprogramms scholarship.

She collaborates with Frank Menger and Liz Hingley on the development and ongoing delivery of workshops, lectures and exhibitions of the SIM Project.

Sofie also lectures at the Royal College of Art in the Jewellery and Metal department, and delivers a School wide project titled “Urban Mining” as part of the Urgency In the Arts Module. Furthermore, Sofie continues to support the British Academy of Jewellery, and hosts the BAJ podcast, for which she records and edits monthly episodes.

Sofie previously worked at CFPR as a RA and Craft Council Research Fellow as part of E3 Research England (2019-2023). She collaborated with the team using and developing equipment, novel ideas and projects, and led a range of large funding applications. She organized a conference ‘Touch: Reflections on Making’ in collaboration with the Crafts Council.

Prior to joining UWE Sofie worked at the British Academy of Jewellery, where she supported the owner in the role of Head of Academy carrying responsibility for the overall leadership and management of the educational institution and its team of approximately 40 members of staff. During her tenure as Head of Academy they achieved the Matrix Standard, BAC accreditation, successfully passed ISI Inspections, and achieved an OFSTED Good Grade in the very first OFSTED inspection of the Institution. Furthermore, the Academy was registered on ROATP to continue its delivery of apprenticeships. The Academy successfully met quality and performance targets of a number of awarding and subcontracting organisations. Sofie oversaw the development of SQA Level 2-6 qualifications in Jewellery Manufacturing and Design, and achieved validation for the BA (Hons) in Jewellery Design and Production by Kingston University. Passionately promoting a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, efficiency, value for money and equality and diversity, Sofie acted as Lead of Safeguarding and personally managed the access and participation strategy. Finally Sofie successfully developed and managed an Erasmus + funded project in collaboration with the Hochschule Trier (Germany) and Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School (Italy).

After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp as Bachelor ‘Jewellery Design and Silversmithing’; Sofie finished her Masters project ‘The fifth Sense of Jewellery’ at the MAD-Faculty in Hasselt and completed postgraduate studies in ‘Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery’ at the Royal College of Art, where her work was awarded the Theo Fennell Overall Excellence Award. Sofie has continuously worked as an independent designer producing bespoke commissions or work for international exhibitions and galleries. Sofie’s research practice as an alchemical jeweller is not restricted to a certain material or technique and through collaboration with others she looks for new and innovative alternatives to the traditional.

Sofie has extensive experience teaching and has achieved the Level 3 Award in Teaching and Learning and the Level 3 Certificate in Assessment. She is visiting lecturer at the London College of Fashion and is regularly invited to give lectures, most recently at the Materials Research Exchange 2020 conference.

Sofie’s work has been shown globally at a range of galleries and exhibitions (Valerie Traan, Antwerp Diamond Museum, Gallerie Zijsprong, Vander A Gallerie – Belgium, Shengxi Museum of Fine Arts, TAFA Art Museum, Gaugin Gallery – China, Cultural History Museum – Finland, Next Level Galerie – France, Gallery Format – Norway, Mint, Design Museum, Phillips Gallery, The Vaults Gallery – UK, Schmuckmuseum – Germany, etc) and pieces have been included in the permanent collection of Gallery Marzee.

Sofie has been selected as One to Watch by the Design Council and was awarded STROOM and Design Vlaanderen grants.

Sofie is the excited producer and host of the BAJ Podcast.