A Stone, an Echo, a Sign: Aotearoa Jewellery Triennial
Curated by Emma Ng
Featuring new work by Becky Bliss,
Neke Moa, Shelley Norton, Rowan
Panther, Moniek Schrijer and Raewyn
Walsh
Whether it’s a bangle of Chinese jade, a carefully lashed toki pounamu or grandma’s gemstone ring, we’re accustomed to appreciating jewellery and adornment in heirloom terms. We hold these treasured objects close to our bodies, as tender caretakers of the meaning they ferry from generation to generation.
But in today’s shifting world, how do we choose which inheritances to hold on to and which to let go? Taking place in our world-warping era of climate crisis and global pandemic, this exhibition shifts focus from object to practice, from jewellery as a noun to jewellery as a verb.
A Stone, an Echo, a Sign celebrates jewellery as a living practice that brings inherited ways of thinking and doing face to face with the present moment. Invested in how our actions, ideas and customs reverberate outside of our lifetimes, this exhibition suggests that to keep our inheritances alive, keep them vital, we have to continually reinterpret them through acts of making and remaking.
As the first in a series of triennial exhibitions developed by Makers 101, A Stone, an Echo, a Sign reflects its particular, complicated moment. Contemporary impulses are represented through six distinct Aotearoa makers, each of whom has produced new work for this exhibition. These makers have been selected for their engagement with the tension between the timely and timeless, working within the enduring tradition of jewellery and adornment.
Emma Ng
Exhibition design by Micheal McCabe
Presented with MAKERS 101
image by: Neke Moa, Papalau, 2022.