1 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 09 376 6216 10 to 5 Mon to Sat [email protected] www.objectspace.org.nz Handshake3 Objectspace Rd 8 Ponsonby Auckland New Zealand ISBN 978-0-9941310-6-5 Published on the occasion of Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators Objectspace 9 July — 13 August 2016 Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 2 Amelia Pascoe—Ruudt Peters Becky Bliss—Fabrizio Tridenti Debbie Adamson—Nichola Shanley Kelly McDonald—Kirsten Haydon Nadene Carr—Fran Allison Sarah Walker-Holt—Helen Britton Raewyn Walsh—Henriette Schuster Neke Moa—Karl Fritsch Renee Bevan—Harrell Fletcher Sarah Read—Liesbeth den Besten Kathryn Yeats—Ben Pearce Sharon Fitness—Lisa Walker Prior to my job at Objectspace I was in were often sprawling messes of democracy an academic role at an art school in New and compromise. And for all the effort and Zealand. The school had been founded on the energy of propagating collaboration as the notion of multi-disciplinary practice. a new ideology, we’d overcomplicated a word Those two and a half words were employed that in the most simple and understandable often and freely to conjure a world of newly terms means some form of working together graduating creatives, professionals who in the hope that it improves the efficiency connect across disciplines blurring the of the process and / or the quality of the edges that have traditionally demarcated outcome. Not new or revolutionary but a areas of study (design, sculpture, photography, word that describes the simple complexity etc.). Annual marketing campaigns inevitably of working human relationships. featured elaborate variations of ‘real world’ Had we employed the same focus and energy metaphors. In the world of the hot desk and on the more mundane aspects of what it takes the creative smell-of-an-oily-rag start up, to work in close proximity to other human collaboration would be key. beings we might have gifted them with tools Collaboration too became a maxim in the a lot more useful later in life: how to be new worldview of a liberal arts education, honest, how to say no, how to argue your where a programme of study’s relevance idea, how to not get driven out of your mind, and appeal is measured by its proximity to how to adapt to whatever form a collaboration industry and commerce. Papers were written might take and shift your expectations and and taught about it, appearing in most your end goal accordingly. It might be a course outlines and project descriptions, unified and mutually creative relationship, details in regard to authorship and but more often than not it sits lower down distribution of workload were laboured in the curve in the vicinity of finding people classrooms. It seemed we were arguing for you can trust and respect, who have a collaboration that was unified and different sets of skills and strengths to you. harmonious, two-bodies-one-mind type Watching the third iteration of Peter scenarios, looking back student projects Decker’s Handshake project come to life Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 3 and it has been a formidable reminder that twists and turns in direction a body of work we are never done with learning how to work might take. Degrees of enjoyment and together, and we all do it differently. 12 success vary; it’s the hair pulling nature of New Zealand based contemporary jewellers, human connection. The joy is in this wider each working with another maker (jeweller, Handshake mechanism, a framework that artist, writer or designer) located in any part seems to continually renew, and to always of the world. The pairing in most instances find ways to retain and give value to its exists from a prior iteration of the project participants, encounter a Handshaker past where jewellers identified and asked their or present and they’ll speak of the project idols to act as mentors. For Handshake 3 and process effusively and with affection. the mentor becomes collaborator. A Handshake demands a kind of involvement challenging and complicated framework, that will put the participant in a situation of but one which has in New Zealand and constant learning, and it begins with the act internationally be heralded for its openness, of the jeweller daring to imagine that a its ability to connect practitioners inter- person they have admired, idolised or read generationally, and to find ways to keep about only in books might take up the offer criticality and experimentation alive in a of a human connection with someone in the maker’s practice once outside of an earlier stages of their career. It education system. In these pairings the encompasses any number of definitions for forces of language, time zones, social what the nature of collaboration might look hierarchies and culture are all at play, set like: unified, prescribed, formal, friendly… against a timeframe of deadlines which there’s no jazzed up marketing speak here, sees them produce exhibitions and no guarantees are given along the way publications in Auckland, Stockholm, either. For these 12 jewellers, it is in the Wellington and likely more. process of working with someone that they The first of these exhibitions here at trust and admire, and in committing to a Objectspace is intended as the most open process of working together in a way that expression of the nature of the process requires openness and humanity that enables the jewellers have been a part of. An a reflection to emerge. To look back again at articulation of the back and forth, the themselves close up and in full detail, to see two-way conversation, multiple voices and and understand their own work in new ways multiple authors — it is the honest and and to seek out improvement, engagement imperfect nature of the Handshake and progress. methodology. The gambit of relationships Kim Paton is the Director of Objectspace are all present, some have achieved an authentic and unified method for making together, some have arrived at a shared strategy that allows the pair to make within the same framework and under the same limitations but with degrees of autonomy. For other jewellers the mentor-turned- collaborator has taken on a role more like an extension of the mentoring voice. Critically engaged, offering feedback and suggestions, a sounding board of the highest order, a guide for all the possible Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 4 AMELIA PASCOE / BECKY BLISS / RUUDT PETERS FABRIZIO TRIDENTI On the origin of species, 2016 Silent Conversation, 2016 Following a pseudo-scientific methodology Utilising silence and interpretation as a adapting elements of Charles Darwin’s framework Becky Bliss and Fabrizio Tridenti’s evolutionary theory to develop a new body Silent Conversation references the inherent of work, jeweller and former scientist Amelia difficulties of language, rather than using Pascoe has created a series of test works that words they have made use of silence transform and change with each iteration. and other forms of communication and Having provided an image as a starting interpretation. Using an image taken from point for Pascoe’s material exploration, her their shared time together in Italy as a Amsterdam-based collaborator Ruudt Peters starting point, their communication has was then invited to influence outcomes at continued as a means of image exchange. certain points in the process by introducing Industrial forms, brutalist architecture and mutation events. These mutations took the concrete featured repeatedly in their back form of instructions issued to Pascoe, and forth, and inspire the work that each altering the course of the making process. have made. Uncanny similarities and nuanced use of material and form is evident in both makers’ works. Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 5 DEBBIE ADAMSON / KELLY MCDONALD / NICHOLA SHANLEY KIRSTEN HAYDON WITH AARON BEEHRE Tool as a Jewel — The Evolutionary Pinch, 2016 Proof that we exist, 2016 Expanding on previous investigations into In opening to us the details of their shared notions of utility, economics, the natural process, Debbie Adamson and Nichola environment, and the object, Kelly Shanley affirm the relationship developed McDonald’s Tool as Jewel explores the through collaboration as constituitive in and human connection to the tool which has of itself, a territory neither, either / or, not spanned millions of years. Using the lost you or me, but a new body of practice which wax casting method, a process relatively emerges through exchange. We. In this unchanged for over 5700 years, McDonald work the daily textures of the makers has made 152 sterling silver and steel rings everyday experience — the slippage of based around the opposable finger and moments, mood and memory — move thumb — humans most useful adaption in the in and out of reflections regarding their use of tools. Together with philosopher making processes. At one point Adamson Sondra Bacharach, writer Kirsten McDougall, paraphrases jeweller Kobi Bosshard, his jeweller Kirsten Haydon, photographer / notion that there must be room remaining in graphic designer Juliet Black and editor a piece of jewellery for the wearer to inhabit. Mary-Jane Duffy the catalogue Tool as Jewel In a sense their development of a diary brings together writing and reflection on form mirrors this. Allowing audiences to McDonald’s area of research. come close to the nuance of the work which vibrates at the intersection of making and daily life. Handshake3: 12 contemporary New Zealand jewellers and their collaborators 6 NADENE CARR / SARAH WALKER-HOLT / FRAN ALLISON HELEN BRITTON Things that might one day Build it Up/Tear it Down, 2016 become jewellery, 2016 Taking shared experiences working with film A series of tests, soft sculptures and and mechanics as a starting point, Sarah maquettes sit on four long shelves each Walker-Holt and Helen Britton’s collaborative taking their material form from found t-shirts, relationship reflects a mutual commitment through acts of deconstruction and remaking.