Elektroničke vještice / Electronic Witches, a film by artist Maja Čule, carries the weight of something lived—its sense of distance, displacement, and chosen connection is deeply personal, yet recognizable to anyone building a life across places on their own terms.
Screened at Anthology Film Archives, the film follows Neda, a recent arrival to New York, as she builds a life in fragments—sharing an apartment with a roommate, navigating unstable work, and regularly FaceTiming her father in Croatia. During a late-night stretch of internet browsing, she comes across Elektroničke vještice, a queer cyberfeminist group of activists who, during the Yugoslav wars, taught women across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia how to use computers and the internet. There is an undertone—particularly in the film’s visual language—that these efforts might have been perceived by society as disruptive, even threatening, almost like a virus moving through the system.
On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, we welcomed a lion dance into the studio for a blessing. After our recent move to Chinatown, it felt especially meaningful to mark this new chapter by honoring a tradition deeply rooted in the neighborhood we now call home.
This Lunar New Year marks the Year of the Horse — a symbol of strength, independence, and forward momentum. As the year begins, we move forward with that energy.
Today is NYC Pride, and I’ve been thinking about what it means to wear who we are.
When I started my own studio, I never thought of it as “woman-owned” or “gay-owned”—though both are true. It was never about fitting into a category. It was built around the idea that jewelry could carry identity, whatever that identity may be, without needing to explain it.
Jelena Behrend Studio is a gay, woman-owned business, proudly serving a wonderfully diverse array of clients, including the LGBTQ+ community, for over three decades. During Pride Month and all year round, when you shop here, you’re directly supporting a business that values and promotes equality for all.
P.S. With this year's celebration in mind, a 10% discount on all priced sterling silver items is automatically applied at checkout (until June 11, 2024, online shopping only). simply click here
I have reached the point in my career where I have built the signature style and developed my own key design elements that define me as a designer and a brand. Like sand in a desert, my work has also shifted and transformed over time as I keep re-working and re-shaping mediums into something new and adapting the core components of my work to my clients’ lifestyles and my own moods. Because of the techniques that I employ, each piece has its own distinct characteristics. My practice evolves, seldom repeating.
The meticulously chosen materials I work with make a great influence on the final look of each piece and although I have worked with colored gemstones in the past, recently I have created a more significant gemstone work and entered another realm of this practice. See it for yourself.
Jelena Behrend Studio is excited to announce our new location in the historic 206 Bowery. Built in circa 1810 after the Revolution, 206 Bowery House has seen many tenants. The building, one of the last surviving federal homes on the Bowery, was on the brink of demolition before it was calendared to become a City Landmark in 2010. 206 Bowery House is still awaiting its Landmark status. In the meantime, Jelena Behrend Studio is delighted to take part in 206 Bowery’s over 200-year history.