Text to Contexture: Story-telling through jewellery
SquarePeg Studios, Sydney, 2018

Two jewellery artists from different cultures recognise the similarities in how they have discovered their ancestral histories through objects left as clues. Their intended collaboration explores the ways their individual practices — one established and the other emerging — intersect and overlap, and how this can influence each other’s work.

In this presentation, Marcia discusses how a shared autoethnography can compel the practice of an artist and reveal itself through jewellery and objects. She use the concepts of text (digits and letters) and texture (surfaces and markings) to relate personal experience within the context of her cultural heritage.

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The visual narrative of the presentation illustrates the collaborative process and weaves together the personal histories and cultural heritages of the two artists. This contexture of history and heritage embodies the direction of their work, allowing for new interpretations and pathways. The creation of new jewellery and objects has a two-fold purpose: it serves as mementos bearing witness to ancestry and, at the same time, it compels further exploration of form and content through iterations within the design process. In conclusion, the presentation examines common, everyday symbols, shared and used in empathetic ways to unite people and tell stories within the context of making and wearing.