On Luxury will include presentations by the residents of Your Pleasure, Our Pain followed by panel discussion addressing the potentials and pitfalls of the luxury industry. The conversation, moderated by professor Veronica B. Manlow, will touch on topics such as craftsmanship, consumption, sustainability, exclusivity, and transparency.

Taking place from 12 August – 9 September 2024, PRAKSIS's twenty-eighth residency, Your Pleasure, Our Pain – The ethics of luxury, brings together local and international professionals within the creative field to research into, and raise awareness of, the urgent issues surrounding the luxury industry. It will also ask, what can be done to bring about change in the industry? It will consider the role that identity politics have on consumer behaviour and identify ways to increase consumer awareness. It will research and develop methods to empower communities to take ownership of the various parts of the supply chain that feeds the luxury industry. It will seek ways to cut the industry’s climate impact.

The participating residents are: Béatrice Sylvie has years of experience working in the luxury business. She is currently studying an MBA at Haute Ecole de Joaillerie, Paris. Erin Sexton is a Canadian artist and radio amateur based in a dome in the forest near Oslo. Melissa Schwarz is a German interdisciplinary artist, designer and researcher, based in London. Nanna Melland is a jewellery artist based in Oslo. Rudolf Kangwa is a Zambian lapidary based in Lusaka, Zambia. He is a first generation gemstone cutter with over 15 years of practice and founder of Rudolf’s Gems, a socially oriented company. Shaun Borstrock is Head of Knowledge Exchange and Research at Ravensbourne University, London, and Luxury Brand Consultant. Victoria Duffee is an American artist, based in Oslo.

Veronica Manlow is Professor of Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship. She teaches courses in leadership, research methods, DEI, fashion marketing, and multicultural marketing. She is a co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies (2021) and a co-author of Crafting Luxury: Craftsmanship, Manufacture, Technology and the Retail Environment (2022). Current research investigates luxury labor performed by artisans in ateliers and factory workers in large conglomerates and considers the interactional dynamics involved in luxury selling.

The residency is developed by by Rudolf Kangwa, Lusaka Centre for Contemporary Art (LuCAC), Goethe-Institut Norwegen and Institut français de Norvège, alongside PRAKSIS.