The 2006 Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia (JMGA) conference aimed to "take makers, collectors, critics and thinkers out of the comfort zone of their normal environments and place them 'on location'; a hypothetical site where speculation, inspiration and the accidental can emerge and diverge, questioning the place of the production of meaning".¹ In conjunction with the conference entitled On Location: Making Stories: siting, citing, sighting a total of nineteen exhibitions were organised by different public and private galleries and museums around Sydney. Considered as satellite events, most responded to conference themes and many were capable of taking visitors out of their viewing comfort zone, leading them to think beyond traditional object making techniques, curatorial concepts and display methods.

Foremost amongst these exhibitions was CHANGE by the Dutch artist Ruudt Peters. Peters' concepts for his work created over a thirty year period often extended to installation methods. The innovative display method for CHANGE reflects the artist's ongoing need to diverge radically from tradition and challenge entirely the language of object and jewellery making and its usual housing. For example pendants, brooches, necklaces and objects from series of the artist's work could be viewed suspended within capsuals that were in turn encased within a moulded fibreglass wall that was printed with text relevant to Ruudt's reading and research. This formed continuity between pieces created over a long period; providing an intellectual thread for the viewer to follow.

Equally challenging was Peter Deckers' installation of his mourning jewellery located outdoors at Sherman Gallery and suspended against printed corrugated iron. Deckers also co-curated an ambitious, large scale exhibition entitled Jewellery Out Of Context (JOC) which featured thirty one New Zealand artists. This exhibition aimed to "provoke the jewellery community by deconstructing and reassembling its most elementary principle - made to wear"². Hence, much of the work created for the exhibition was conceptual, non wearable objects about jewellery. In particular, the respective textile based work of Arti Sandhu, Fran Alison and Sandra Bushby formed clear responses to the brief as did Tracy Clement/Melissa Laing's A Leading Role video and installation pieces by Lisa Walker and Chelsea Gough/Gabby O'Connor.

At the Powerhouse Museum a tight selection of neckpieces by five contemporary Japanese jewellers also challenged the location in which artists now collect material to make work. For example, one artist, Teruo Akatsu, collects dust "from the domestic environment and threads it onto steel wire to create jewellery suggestive of the passing and accumulation of time"³. The outcome is extraordinary work capable of educating us about alternative object making trends. Four Australian artists invited to exhibit at Sydney University's Macleay Museum, show a similar need to rethink traditional object making materials. For example, Susanna Strati's Specimen series was crafted from wax with copper surfaces decorated with coloured pencil whilst Keith Lo Bue incorporated stick insect eggshells and optometrist test lenses within one work. In many cases material chosen from the natural environment distinguished an artist's work from their counterparts, as was the case with Catherine Truman's brooches featuring English lime wood (ImPermanent Resident; Luminaries), Rian de Jong's black coral brooches (still) and Margaret West's brooches using carved Carrara marble (Luminaries).

Other artists' work queried not materials or exhibition space, but the body as a site for adornment and what can be worn on the human body. The Queensland jeweller, Margot Douglas for example, had a solo exhibition entitled rewind/FORWARD in which she exhibited a series of work entitled Books for the body. Not all items were actual books but were made from paper and referenced diaries, letters, ephemera and books owned by the artist's ancestors. In addition to this, Margot's 'Sorry' ring was one of only a few pieces on display during the conference which spoke directly about Australia's black/white relations and traditional Aboriginal sites of meaning. In terms of overseas exhibition content Warwick Freeman's jewellery referencing Maori cultural material in Luminaries created a valuable focus on New Zealand's inter-racial issues.

New work from Maningrida was a stunning exhibition hosted by Horus and Deloris Contemporary Art Gallery and curated by the jeweller Alice Whish and Dr.Louise Hamby. Here dozens of necklaces by twenty two Aboriginal women from Maningrida in Arnhem Land were displayed flat under perspex. Each artist's intricate designs combining locally collected shells and seeds, were breathtaking. Alice Whish's recent contact with women from Aboriginal communities inspired her to make jewellery using feathers, ochre and shells for the exhibition Sighting the Past organised by the Macleay Museum. To an extent Whish's concerns can be compared with those of Freeman and Douglas but her work says more about the transience of some Aboriginal body adornment and its ritual meaning.

As expected, smaller commercial spaces became locations for more conventional exhibitions. A feature of some of these exhibitions was a decision to show well established artists with students, graduates and younger artists, which I believe demonstrated a camaraderie evident at the JMGA conference itself. For example, Yuri Kawanabe and Yuji Kono exhibited with Rui Kikuchi and Takako Ohara at Kinokunyia Gallery. JMGA member exhibitions and jewellery/object graduate exhibitions created a similar mix of participants with some highlights being the work of Ximena Briceno at GIG Gallery (In the Can), Jason Wade at Brenda May Gallery (Victorian Stories) and Zarela Luzinsky and Susan O'Brien (Thinktank) at Metalab in Surry Hills.

As with many conferences JMGA's event allowed practitioners from all backgrounds to interact more than at other times in the year when the role of teacher, student, master and learner are more strictly adhered to. The conference exhibition program offered a good cross section of current practice and succeeded in extending conference dialogue on questions of locating meaning in relation to sites of making and analysing jewellery and objects. Through this theme jewellery and object makers who are dislocated from mainstream trends had a chance to speak and place themselves within the supportive yet temporary framework of the conference. Exhibition organisers were privileged to join this framework whilst audiences experienced the unusual treat of choosing from such a varied and accomplished program.

Lyndel Wischer, February 2006

Footnotes

1. Karin Findeis On Location Conference Summary 2005
2. Peter Deckers 'Foreword' in Jewellery Out of Context An Exhibition of New Zealand Artists First Edition, Wellington, 2006
3. Louise Mitchell Japanese Jewellers x 5 exhibition label text, Powerhouse Museum, 2005