My collection is a range of bracelets I’ve collected from traveling overseas and around New Zealand, the themes going through out my collection are jewellery, individuality, and crafting. Concepts that make it a collection is how the items are all jewellery collected from different location, all are made out of the similar material which is wood and all of these items have a beach appearance.
One of the themes in my collection is “jewellery” this is because the objects in the collection are all jewellery, the bracelet and necklace is made out of materials like wood, strings, and other objects like shells or shark teeth, these types of jewellery are normally sold in beach areas or surf stores as they are worn by surfers. I choose to collect jewellery like this because of how its hand made, and I like the look how its crafted and also its wearable I find collecting something wearable when traveling as a good way idea to hold memories because each necklace or bracelet holds a different memory from each location.One of my jewellery’s are from Hawaii, this is the object with a shark tooth. The objects like the shark tooth put into jewellery are known for luck during being in the water and the beach, it is suppose to stop sharks from attacking you “symbol of protection, shark teeth in jewellery is not taken directly from the shark this is because shark tooth are found in the bottom of the sea from tooth lost and so this is where the teeth are found and also come in different sizes. In Hawaii shark teeth used in jewellery isn’t just s symbol of protection but also is a representation of praising to the sharks this is called “Aumakau” because some sharks are known as gods (Kiley, 2015). The shark tooth in the jewellery is quite interesting for me and important as am I am taking a part of Hawaii back with me. Other locations that I’ve got my jewellery from is Fiji, Waiheke Island and Bay of islands.
Individuality is another theme in my collection, I’ve chosen this as one of my themes because each object has a individual meaning from a memory “memento” however not all my objects are from travelling some objects are also given by a close friend “keepsake”. The jewellery from Hawaii is important to me because it was my first time travelling there, It was a interesting experience for me to be surround by surf culture as this is something I’m interested in and it was astonishing seeing it in real life rather then on social media and I saw also surround by their culture and art. The jewellery from Fiji is important to me because it holds the memory of new experiences, these are going to Fiji for the 1st time, living around the beach and sea for a whole week and also visiting the villages in Fiji and schools this was a important experience for me because I saw the different between with how I live as the villages were a very poor areas and all the kids lived in the school with not much stationary, they also didn’t have clean mattresses to sleep in and this was a eye opening experience for me because the kids didn’t have much but yet they seemed happy. Other object with a important memory is my bracelet with the Rastafarian colours, this was given by a friend and it holds a memory of a music festival surround by reggae music and an Rastafarian influence and the rest of my jewellery are memories of new surrounds from road trips. The idea of the memories hold in the objects almost make it look like a collection of memories instead of a collection of jewellery.
Craft is another theme associated into my collection, this is because all these objects are Crafted. During time some of these objects have broken from getting old and I’ve take in the time to fix them by repainting them and repairing them and this also recreates the jewellery into a new look however this doesn’t change the memory the objects hold and the reason why I’ve collected crafted items is because they’re made out of wood which chips and changes over time which gives the object a interesting texture this goes the same for the shells on the jewellery and natural media gives the objects raw look, I also like how the jewellery has hand craft patterns crafted into it, I find this interesting it takes a lot of time, hard work, and focusing to be created . Crafting is also a movement related to art which is a interest I have, this is one of the reasons why I choose to collect crafted jewellery. My collection of jewellery’s are mostly craft by oceans or beach’s, this is something important in my collection as the beach culture is something I take interest in and the surrounding of where I collect my object is also Important to me as this is part of the memory being hold on with it. The Craft jewellery’s all have neutral colours, this is because I don’t want the object to be about the look as much as the memory it holds, I think the idea of collecting crafted jewellery is a good idea as it is something you can remake yourself as well with found objects. As for repairing the jewellery I also create my own jewellery with crafting with found objects or objects from old jewellery, I then make it into something new and is add to my collection.
We can come to say that my collection are objects that are personal to me which carry personal experience and memories, carry out the theme of jewellery, individuality, and crafting. The concept that makes my objects a collection is the memories collected with the jewellery and the location of the memory, the influence of experience bought along with the object which makes the collection what it is.
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 Emily Shen
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Travel Bracelets
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Wood
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16 – 20 cm ( All Bracelets)
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These are bracelets and necklaces collected by me from different road trips to different locations in New Zealand or trips to over seas and each of the holds a memory and these bracelets and necklaces are all hand made.
Who Am I ?
My parents are from China and I’m born in New Zealand Auckland, I don’t know much of my family background or previous generations background as we are not religious, however we do celebrate Chinese culture customs like Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, the Moon Festival and these traditions are celebrated each year.
Chinese New Year is a festival to celebrate our zodiac signs from the Chinese Calendar however each year only one zodiac sign is celebrated depending on what year it is and this lends to the zodiac sign, during the celebration families gather for reunion dinners and give our red paper envelopes with money and in New Zealand Chinese New Year is not as big as a celebration as in China.
Lantern Festival celebrated on the 15th day of New years, this tradition is to celebrates the final day of Chinese New Years and this is celebrated with lighting paper Lanterns.
The Moon Festival is to celebrate the 15th day of the eight month on the Chinese calendar during then there will also be a full moon between September and October, this festival is celebrated just before Chinese New Year and this is celebrated with mooncakes and paper lanterns.
Most of these traditions are to celebrate good luck for the future.
Significant Item
This is my selected item as it is important to me because these are bracelets and necklaces collected by me from different road trips to different locations in New Zealand or trips to over seas and each of the holds a memory and these bracelets and necklaces are all hand made.
The range of industries covered were industrial design, interior design, story telling, sculptor, social- political art and painting.My selected guess speaker is Serena Stevenson she is a female in the creative industries ,she talked about her main elements in her presentation which are working with story telling through film making, photography, and advertising however her main focus is on authentic story telling and these practice relate to my future aspirations in a way.
Stevenson has been working with story telling, she does this through filming by recording sound so the audience can experience a story in a way. Stevenson has been in a filming program for one year learning about business, presenting, investment, collaboration teams and getting into a design business called Big Voice in 2008 which is a alternative plat form voice for business and more and also the company specialised in production of content for content for multimedia. During working with Big voice stories were made in a collaborative content through multiple plat forms and putting them through multiple plat forms and advertising them on the streets, LED screens and online. Big voice started working with companies like Auckland Regional Facilities and they started doing trans media story telling projects, this project included video, photography, performance and projections, however before she started story telling with Big Voice in 2009 Stevenson was designing a story and looking at the right disputations to reach the right audiences that she wanted to reach and this was how she got accepted into the program. Stevenson started using a video camera in the early 2000s and started shooting video content and she wasn’t self taught because she took a course for it. Stevenson’s film making has relevance to my future aspirations because I am interested in film making and want to experience in video making in the future.
Another way Stevenson does story telling is through photography, She started photographing her grandmother when she was 18 this is also when she first started doing photography as she is self taught. As time went by she later on used photography as a way to find out more about her Italian culture and who she was by using her camera to communicate with her grandparents because she didn’t speak Italian, which turned into a project. Stevenson spent 2 weeks taking pictures in her families kitchen while they made recipes and she photographed over 40 recipes in two weeks and she also took portraits and did interviews. The project was going to be a book but not a cook book, it was going to be a book that has photographs with recipes and her aim in this was to make a photographic story book, her reason to why she involve recipes in her book was because photographic books don’t get published as much as cook books. Stevenson later on took a course to learn more about photography, she learn about photographic assistance and worked with professionals, she learnt about the technical sides of photography, communication skills, how to run a business and also learnt about owner ship of ones work for media maintenance. The practice she has in photography gives me interest because I do photography in my own time and thats how I learnt to take pictures as she is also self taught and I would like to carry this on to make it one of my strengths.
Stevenson also does story telling through her own website, she spent time working with a person who works in creative industries and who is a producer for a digital agency, she then worked with him to find out what she was trying to say on her website and what she wanted to sell and advertise. Stevenson started out as a photographer which she still is and she was shooting commercial photography in 2000 which was a commercial business sustaining person practice which was story telling and documentary and from there she started shooting advertising for design agencies and also during this time Stevenson was doing some editorial classes and taught people how to use a camera to express themselves. Stevenson’s idea of her own website also draw my interest because I hope to have a website of my own one day showing my work.
Stevenson is a story teller in the creative industries who tells through using film making, photography and advertising and she has worked with many projects of her own, also with others and her work is interesting and is inspirational and also some of her practices like photography, filming making and having her own website have interest in my future practice as it is some of the things I want to experiment with and achieve.
The findings for my group was numbers because we got given the word “number”. We used wool to connect all the numbers on pages we found and we kept doing this till we reached the end of the pages at the end all the wool was connected to something that had a relation with numbers.
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Emily Shen 