Stoned

On my recent travels in Sweden I was given a copy of a catalogue called Amber and what to do with it?, published alongside an exhibition of the same name that was held in Sweden in 2008. It was the final outcome of a project called ‘Kaliningrad Amber’, a collaboration between ten artists from Sweden and Russia, who were exploring how amber might be developed as a material for contemporary jewellery. Natalia Shevchuk from the Kaliningrad Amber Museum provides a nice description of the project in the catalogue:

In ancient times, the “sunny stone” was well-known and used by craftsmen of the Nordic countries. In archaeological excavations, unique monuments to the art of amber treatment have been found all over Scandinavia, and particularly in Sweden. In recent years, amber as a material of artistic expression has been pretty much forgotten. This was made clear in the work shown at the [Swedish contemporary jewellery] exhibition Extended in 2006 where our Baltic gem was not used at all. It was then that the idea of a new project emerged, and “Kaliningrad Amber” was born.

The first phase of the project took place in November, 2007, as a workshop in the towns of Kaliningrad, Svetlogorsk and in the village of Yantarny. Five artists and designers from Sweden visited Kaliningrad to meet and work together with five colleagues from Kaliningrad. Some of the Swedes had not worked with amber previously, and some had treated it with caution due to its magical qualities. As for the Kaliningraders, the Baltic gem is a customary material for them. While working to renew the existing traditions of amber treatment, it was very important to get acquainted with customary approaches and systems of artistic thinking.

In order to create an atmosphere that would encourage creativity and dialogue, a trip to the Amber Factory and the very heart of the amber deposit – to the open pit, was arranged. During the following three days the Swedish and Kaliningrad participants worked to express their impressions in a variety of materials, forms and images. They also drew inspiration from the astonishing nature of the seaside town of Svetlogorsk: wooded hills, fidgety Baltic Sea and fresh autumn air. However, their main source of inspiration was undoubtedly the amber with its mysterious and natural beauty.

Based on the results of the workshop, a round table talk was arranged at the Amber Museum, where the participants discussed the events of the week, exchanged opinions, and showed the results of their work; some shared realized project ideas, while others discussed their thoughts and how to implement them.

The exhibition Amber and what to do with it? showcased finished works of art that had developed after the workshop and round table in Russia. (Kaliningrad is the the world’s largest amber producer, and home to over 90% of the world’s known amber deposits.) Somewhat more a display of the graphic designer’s art than a useful record of what these ten makers actually produced, the catalogue reveals a variety of approaches: amber used as a photographic lens; amber tinned in salt water, like tuna, to reveal it in its ‘alive’ state; amber transformed into luxury jewels, in opposition to its more democratic and affordable character; amber explored as a subject of nostalgia; the stone turned into other objects (such as a clock), and so on. While the final objects differ in quality and their levels of success, it is certainly fair to say that the project achieved its goal of resusitating amber as a material of ambitious artistic production.

I found this project interesting because of its engagement with a set of issues that are also alive in Aotearoa around the question of pounamu, New Zealand jade. I’m less certain of the cultural values of amber, and whether it has a significant role within indigenous cultural production, but certainly pounamu suffers the same sense of restricted possibilities that afflict contemporary jewellery approaches to amber. Certainly not invisible, as it seems amber has become within Swedish jewellery, pounamu is trapped between two poles: its precious and sacred quality as a traditional and contemporary material within Maori art; and its cliched and degraded use within the souvenir industry. This makes it hard to use within contemporary jewellery, and leaves the sense that pounamu could do with being freed from the twin attitudes of piety or profanity.

I suppose the local equivalent to Amber and what to do with it? would be Joe Sheehan’s Limelight exhibition at Objectspace in 2007. Like the ten makers working hard to find new ways to use, and think about, amber, Sheehan’s series of interventions into the use and meanings of pounamu was designed as a challenge to conventional thinking, a shake-up of the established order. (To visit Objectspace’s website and find out more about Sheehan’s exhibition, click here.) Sheehan’s beautifully carved everyday objects were an attempt to find another way to handle pounamu, with a witty twist in the deliberately lo-fi and outdated technological nature of most of them (cassette tape, pencil, light bulb) making a pointed comment about our attitudes to the material while also refusing us the safety of conventional responses.

Ultimately, though, while interventions of the kind represented by Amber and what to do with it? and Limelight are essential in moving somewhere else, I wonder how much difference they actually make to contemporary jewellery. This isn’t meant as a criticism of the makers, or of these projects, which, within the terms they set out to address, do a nice job. Rather, it is meant to suggest that this work doesn’t necessarily connect with contemporary jewellery and its histories, but instead almost leap-frogs the problem of fraught materials like amber or pounamu by moving into the realm of contemporary art. There’s almost no jewellery in Amber and what to do with it? and there is little jewellery in Limelight. The question asked by one, and the promised light of the other, illuminate a problem that is really still waiting to be answered within the realm of jewellery itself.

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