Participants (see their HS progress)
- Antonia Boyle
- Aphra Cheesman
- Nina van Duijnhoven
- Jack Hadley
- Fran Leitch
- Nikki Perry
- Amelia Rothwell
- Mia Straka
- Simon Swale
- Susan Videler
- Michelle Wilkinson
- Macarena Bernal
The HANDSHAKE 6 Activities’ programme for 2020 – 2021:
MASTERclass 2021
ON-E by: Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October about ONLINE EXHIBTIONS with the intention to prepare Handshake 6 artists for their online exhibition submission

Statement: Recently, curators and educators have progressively started exploring the numerous possibilities proposed by virtual exhibitions. Institutions have made 3-D tours of their galleries accessible online through a variety of platforms, allowing visitors from around the globe to virtually “wander” through many Museums around the world, Van Gogh Museum or Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico among other significant sites. But when the Covid-19 pandemic started, public curiosity in virtual art experiences, as for the need of the maker to present worldwide their works, increased like never before.
The online-exhibiting field is yet to be fully discovered, therefore our main purpose with this Masterclass -besides the fact that Handshake Program has since long counted with online exhibitions-, it is to offer intuitive virtual exhibition ideas and presentation of our works, that offers flexibility and are willing to reach to public and/or followers showing their final results, as for its working process as part of the result itself. Aiming at generating enthusiasm through sharing emotions, new values and creating expectations; “The goal is the meaning and the meaning is the goal” while testing abstract and visual/sound experiments, we will our work and process as for the idea of how to present virtually these works yet we as creators. Throughout provoking alternatives to in-person viewing, interactive and a variety of content formats that viewers can engage with, especially during the present times we live in.
Techniques: Video/sound/photo
JEWELcamp 2021 June – Aug
FUNDRAISING Workshop
by: Joany Grima
Objectives: To empower HS6 artists to create a practical, implementable and achievable plan to achieve your collective Handshake fundraising goal.
JEWELcamp & MASTERclass 2020
The HS6 programme started off in pre-Covid January with a JEWELcamp that contained an intro and instruction to the programme, and a Push/Pull intro workshop with Renee Bevan, and a Masterclass workshop with Iris Eichenberg at NZ school of Art & Fashion, Epsom, Auckland.
What happened during MASTERclass:
HS6 artists had to place 5 unfinished works and a finished work they brought along from their workshops on the table.
Iris asked to spend 45 mins with no talking, moving around the tables and adding, subtracting, or moving/grouping works as they pleased.
On an adjacent table, each had tipped out the shoebox of workshop materials they brought along. Invited to help themselves to anyone’s collection they ‘interfered’ with others’ work on the table. After this, all had to write down what was noticeable when they interfered with other’s people’s objects, and what was noticeable what happened to their own work.
Each discussed that in the group.
Following that Iris asked to take some things off the table that was thought were not finished or did not belong there – then to replace it with something.
After that they were instructed to categorise the remaining works into groupings.
They started this in seperate groups, but all moved in and around so the groups weren’t fixed, which happened naturally. After categorising, the remaining works were labelled and went into collections.
This freeing and fun exercise illuminates and illustrates how artists operate in terms of editing and taste preferences.
Iris’ questioning and inspiring ways brought magic to HS6
Blog Posts
Intention
I want to make work that is intimate; that makes people want to touch it, to hold it; that touches people.
Sentiment, melancholy, or Nostalgia?
July work! After my last session with Iris on Friday morning these are some of the question and avenues I find myself traversing at the moment after our discussion...she also asked where does your work sit; is it sentimental, Melancholy or Nostalgic? I find it at this...
Stitched!
June 2020 Hand, cotton and sunlight! June 2020 sleeves and buttons A play with pattern. I couldn’t find my hands to create things during lockdown, I could see them but couldn’t use them how I wanted! To get into this work physically I have to have someone to...
We Are Not The Poem
We Are Not the Poem. ‘The problem is we think we exist. We think our words are permanent and solid and stamp us forever. That’s not true. We write in the moment. Sometimes when I read poems at a reading to strangers, I realize they think those poems are me....
Head, Hands and Heart: Part 2 – Hands
To escape from my head, I began to engage my hands. I started using what was stashed in my workshop - wire, paper, thread. These didn't give me what I wanted, they were too considered and not organic enough for me. I then discovered an unopened pack of...
Dying and Drawing
I wish to show with the following photographs how salient colour is when making work. As I said in my previous blog, as a result of answers to questions about colour with regard to anxiety, I experimented with dyes, on bone, silks and wood. ...
My Glamorous Life / Studio Experiments
My jewellery practice has typically incorporated traditional jewellery materials: silver, gold and cheap gemstones. Recently, this has started to feel expensive and a bit limiting. I have started playing around with some new materials like aluminium, lead and rubber....
Moss image collecting
All of these images were taken out and about in my neighbourhood.
Untying knots in my thinking
At the conclusion of the second Zoom meeting when we were in lockdown level one, I asked folk to respond to questions about stress/anxiety. Overwhelmingly the colours associated were red and black, a rogue vomit brown, navy and mustard appeared also. Tentacles and...
HANDSHAKE in HAMILTON
Handshake in Hamilton is a group exhibition co-curated by contemporary art collector, Garth O’Brien, and Weasel Gallery Director, Laree Payne. Handshake in Hamilton presents a diverse range of contemporary jewellery from the Handshake 6 cohort alongside paintings by...
No sense of order
The world is undergoing a rather large task. And failing miserably in so many places with Covid-19. What a mess! Here in New Zealand our government shut our borders quickly to give our health professionals time to prepare for the unknown and uncontrollable future. As...
Life in a bubble
This post was written 23 March 2020, due to technical issues (dead laptop charger) it could not be published earlier. Isolation day 32 (feels like 3000). March has been a month of chaos in many different ways. I worked, I taught, I suffered from illness and fear, and...
HANDSHAKE IN HAMILTON
A CONTEMPORARY JEWELLERY EXHIBITION WITH PORTRAITS BY HANNAH IRELAND 8 JUL – 1 AUG. 2020 OPENING NIGHT 10 JUL / 4–6PM Weasel C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T G A L L E R Y 260 Victoria St / Hamilton / New Zealand MORE image: Aphra Cheeseman
Change is the law of the universe.
Impermanence is a feature of everything that lives. All things, feelings and states pass away and are not permanent or graspable. Trying to hold onto material possessions, people, or experiences, knowing that life is moment to moment and constantly changing, can make...
Familiar Things
Through my practice, I try to cultivate an attentiveness to the world around me. I think of making as a way of connecting to the world of people and things. Recently, I came across an essay by documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, which discusses how ‘the...










