Treasure Maps

Playground exhibition
2016
JamFactory, Adelaide
Curated by Rayleen Forester

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Treasure Maps is a series of works that explore connections between jewellery, people and their surrounding environment. Jewellery is made up of many small material components, and each one can be assigned meaning. Items such as gems, rings, beads and pendants may evoke memories (of people, places) or transmit desires. They are like location points on a map, with the connecting links, chains and thread running like roads and rivers between them.

If jewellery is a kind of personal and cultural map, then its distinguishing feature is its ability to connect with the body. As the body moves, so too does the jewellery. The location points – and their meaning – are not fixed.

The blank spaces within and surrounding jewellery are important territories for investigation. The blank space connects a piece of jewellery to the outside world, and its enclosures allow for placement on the body. Jewellery makers have little control over these spaces. Instead, the owner and wearer design this space; they determine the connecting environment and the configurations of its movement.

Peta Kruger, 2016