Theo Crombach/ Everyday Objects

Theo Crombach is a Düsseldorf-based designer working at the intersection of jewellery and objects. He is studying New Craft Object Design at Hochschule Düsseldorf, having previously begun a degree in mechanical engineering - a detour that made clear how much he missed hands-on making within all the theory. Today, he approaches craft largely as a self-taught practitioner.

Crombach works across materials, using metal in both fine and raw forms alongside 3D-printed plastic. His approach is an activist one: he understands design as a means of making injustices and grievan-ces visible, and of shaping the world around him for the better. His objects carry a stance without forcing it on the viewer.

In 2025, he took part in a group presentation at Upstairs Amsterdam during Obsessed with Jewellery, a city-wide jewellery event.

‘’My practice begins with a question: which injustices are so woven into our everyday surroundings that we no longer see them? Working between jewellery and object, I take human-made structures that pass unnoticed, the ones that quietly divide, exclude, or exploit, and translate them into forms worn on the body, where they can no longer be ignored. For me, design is not decoration but a way of making a stance visible.

I am drawn to the overlooked architecture of our landscapes: the barriers and grids we build to control nature, often at its expense. My materials follow the subject, from raw steel wire to precisely worked copper. In 10⁹, the rigid cage of gabion walls becomes a mesh of steel wire, and the raster of monoculture is pressed into copper. The title names the yearly value of insect pollination in Germany, over one billion euros, a measure of how much we stand to lose.’’