UpCycled: Kinetic Jewelry from Bike Parts

Transform used bike chains into kinetic jewelry and small wearable objects with movement, memory, and a little bit of steel magic.
About this Event

In this hands-on workshop, we’ll transform used bike chains into kinetic jewelry and small wearable objects with movement, memory, and a little bit of steel magic.

Participants will learn how to clean, break down, and repurpose bike chain into pieces that can become a necklace, bracelet, keychain, gift, or small talisman. We’ll also explore heat painting steel, using flame and temperature to bring out shifting blues, golds, purples, and other iridescent tones in the metal.
Kinetic jewelry offers a small source of movement, texture, and tactile stimulation, something to fidget with, focus on, or carry as a grounding object. Your finished piece might commemorate the bike you crossed the country with, hold the story of a beloved ride, or become a gift for someone who would rather skip the subway and bomb down Broadway on two wheels instead.

Participants are welcome to bring their own retired bike chain, especially one with personal meaning, or use materials provided in class. No prior jewelry-making or bike repair experience needed, just curiosity, hands, and a willingness to play with metal, motion, and memory.

Your instructor:

Adela Wagner is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, community organizer, and long-distance cyclist whose work often lives at the intersection of movement, memory, and care. Their cycling life began in NYC on a rusted Craigslist bike and eventually carried them across six states on a solo ride from Pennsylvania to Georgia, through Czech mountain roads, and into mutual aid rides, street activism, and bike community. For Adela, the bicycle is both a practical tool and a vessel for story: a way to move through fear, build connection, carry grief, and find freedom in the flow state.

This is a masks optional workshop

As with all NYC Resistor events, this class is 18+ and governed by our Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct, as well as accessibility information, can be found at www.nycresistor.com/participate/.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.