INVOCATIONS
CRAFT, 2 November 2023 – 20 January 2024
Curated by Zaiba Khan
Ara Dolatian / Anke Kindle / Cassie Leatham / Juan Castro / Liv Boyle / Louise Meuwissen / Zaiba Khan
Guest curated by artist and jeweller Zaiba Khan, Invocations delves into the realm of living objects.
Seven artists and jewellers consider the belief that when we treat our materials with reverence, and make with intention, our works become imbued with a unique vitality, or spirit.
This exhibition celebrates the profound power of adornment to transcend the confines of the physical. These objects become containers — embodying familial bonds, connection to culture, to faith, and to nature. They become tangible links to the past and the future.
Invocations illuminates the inherent spiritual charge carried by our adornments and the interconnected threads that bind the maker, the collector, the recipient, and the inheritor as the spirited object traverses through time and space. Adornment, in this context, emerges as a sacred act— an expression of devotion, connection, and the passage of time, to love and loss, to all that we cannot see.
We Seed [necklace], marine plastic nurdles (Henderson Island, East Beach), oxidised copper, seaweed dyed silk (Neptune’s Necklace, Bull Kelp), 2,620 x 7 x 4mm
We Seed is a slow meditation on plastic and the problems it's causing for marine ecosystems indiscriminately. As part of an ongoing art-science collaboration, these nurdles were collected by marine eco-toxicologist, Dr Jennifer Lavers, during a ground-breaking Research Expedition to Henderson Island in 2019, studying the highest concentration of plastic pollution on record, in one of the most remote places on earth. Laboriously gathered, cleaned, drilled, and threaded, this seaweed-like strand is populated with a scattering of handmade mussels – sentinels for aquatic health, clinging on for dear life.
![Cape’s Cascade [earrings], marine plastic nurdles (Woolamai Surf Beach), fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, botanical dyed silk (Neptune’s Necklace seaweed, eucalypt bark – windfall), 120 x 10 x 10mm](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/d3c176f5-22c5-4cf5-bc2e-fd21d2badba3/Cape%27s+cascade+earrings_nurdles%2C+pearls%2C+18ct+gold_Liv+Boyle+Jeweller_5260.jpg)
Cape’s Cascade [earrings], marine plastic nurdles (Woolamai Surf Beach), fresh water pearls, 18ct gold, botanical dyed silk (Neptune’s Necklace seaweed, eucalypt bark – windfall), 120 x 10 x 10mm
![[detail]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/1724893221747-Y4S98UBDLBC1SWJSMD7V/Craft-Oct-Product_396.jpg)
[detail]
In Cape’s Cascade, plastic and pearls spill from forged gold hooks like waterfalls for the lobes. Incantations from a south-facing beach, the elements have worked their magic on this most incongruous material found routinely along Phillip Island’s wild Cape Woolamai. Thrown ashore in the sky-reflecting wash of disappearing waves, light-bending and luminous, nurdles play in the lustrous company of pearls, a homage to their resting place amongst iridescent shells in mounds of weed.
![Raft [brooch], Found galvanised steel (Merri Creek), gouache, paperbark (windfall), verdigris copper, oxidised fine silver, sterling silver, stainless steel, 9ct rose gold, 76 x 100 x 10mm](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/93532aa0-71e6-4541-af9f-9b3b409e2300/Raft+brooch_copper%2C+silver%2C+9ct+rose+gold%2C+paint%2C+paperbark_Liv+Boyle+Jeweller_5250.jpg)
Raft [brooch], Found galvanised steel (Merri Creek), gouache, paperbark (windfall), verdigris copper, oxidised fine silver, sterling silver, stainless steel, 9ct rose gold, 76 x 100 x 10mm
![[back detail]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/41627155-6145-4559-bc6d-f4ee71063f42/Raft+brooch_copper%2C+silver%2C+9ct+rose+gold%2C+paint%2C+paperbark_Liv+Boyle+Jeweller_5252.jpg)
[back detail]
When the flooding subsided, I followed the path carved out by the water and inspected its deposits; freshwater mussel shells tumbled through the grassy verge, colourful junk banked up in branches, a sliver of steel coated in clay. This piece references the phenomenon of Rafting, a means of species dispersal, and a mechanism for survival.
![Mussel [stud earrings, mixed singles], oxidised / gold-plated copper, sterling silver, 13 x 7 x 4mm approx](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/0a69f293-79c6-4973-abc4-1b36d420c71c/Mussel+studs_copper+925+ox+gold+plate_Liv+Boyle.JPG)
Mussel [stud earrings, mixed singles], oxidised / gold-plated copper, sterling silver, 13 x 7 x 4mm approx
![Mussel [stud earrings, pair], gold-plated copper, sterling silver, 13 x 7 x 4mm approx](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f6dc70c4a8eec79c3d1abf3/ec99a3a8-20c0-4a44-b8f2-be033d4a81e6/Mussel+stud+earrings+gold+plated_Liv+Boyle+Jeweller_3483.jpg)
Mussel [stud earrings, pair], gold-plated copper, sterling silver, 13 x 7 x 4mm approx
The wide distribution of mussels, coupled with their efficiency as aquatic filters, makes them an indicator species for microplastic pollution globally. These press-formed molluscs celebrate the beauty and importance of the humble bivalve.
Blue Straw [necklace], driftwood, beach plastic, fine gold, sterling silver, stainless steel, gouache, silk, 690 x 7 x 7mm. Image credit: Heather McDonald
The idea for Blue Straw emerged as I sat on the banks of the Yarra and watched objects float by; twigs, jellyfish and many kinds of plastic waste. Most notably, a blue straw. There is something impossible about the colour blue in a muddy river, absurd yet miraculous, both jewel-like and toxic. Like a great lung, I watched the river suck the straw back into itself with the tide change.
Back home in New Zealand, I noticed similar levels of plastic waste in the water bodies I grew up with, the objects again striking me as simultaneously beautiful and deadly. For this piece I used a driftwood reed found on the shores of Lake Taupo, painted with gouache in cerulean blue. To honour and emphasise the fragile nature of the reed, a fracture incurred during travel is repaired with gold foil (in the spirit of Kintsugi). The adjustable toggle is made with silk, silver and a fragment of marine plastic.
Image credit: Henry Trumble
We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands where this work was collected, developed, and created. We offer our respects to their elders past and present.