Identity Issues
December 22, 2009
During my recent trip to Sweden, I had the opportunity to sit down with a group of Swedish contemporary jewellers in Goteborg. We talked about their work, and what it is like to make jewellery in Sweden. One of the most interesting aspects of our discussion was the general reluctance on the part of these jewellers to accept the label ‘Swedish jeweller’.
Like most European jewellers that I have encountered, none of these Swedish jewellers saw themselves as making Swedish jewellery. It was as though they didn’t even understand this as a basic label for them and their work – Swedish jewellery being jewellery which is made in Sweden, or by Swedish jewellers. Instead, the only way they seemed to understand this label was as a descriptor of theme or material – Swedish jewellery as jewellery that in some way declares its Swedishness through references to national/ethnic traditions, or local or natural materials. In this sense, none of the jewellers who attended the discussion in Goteborg were Swedish jewellers, and none of them seemed to think of their work in these terms.
This issue raises a series of questions that I am keen to understand properly. Why is it that Europeans think about their jewellery without reference to nationality? What framework replaces national identity in terms of how they think about their work? What value is there in nationalising European jewellery? Does this unlock otherwise hidden meanings or dimensions of practice; does it undo the universalising claims of European jewellery? (Its claims to be global, rather than provincial?) Is this a model that should be applied to New Zealand contemporary jewellery (or any other country)? What are good and bad methods of thinking about, or relating to, national identity in jewellery? E.g. what is Swedishness in contemporary jewellery, and what value does it offer for Swedish jewellery to engage with local traditions? Or is it just a fast track to provincial irrelevance?
It is interesting that Americans seem to have no trouble applying the term American jewellery to their work, or Australians the idea of Australian jewellery. And indeed, we can easily talk about the idea of European jewellery. So perhaps part of the issue is Europe’s geographical closeness, the flow of people and jewellery between national borders. (I am currently in Geneva, Switzerland, and yesterday I went to France for brunch – a pretty unimaginable event from the perspective of my normal life in Gisborne.) Perhaps this is responsible for the greater expansiveness of Swedish (and other European) jewellery. And of course nobody – even New Zealand jewellers – finds it easy to think about national identity beyond that initial level of jewellery being New Zealand or otherwise by virtue of being made in New Zealand, or by New Zealanders.
Still, this apparent confidence on the part of contemporary jewellers living in Sweden does not necessarily translate to the culture at large. At Arlanda airport outside Stockholm there are a series of posters lining the walls of the arrival hall which advertise the famous sons and daughters of Sweden. I smiled when I saw this, because it reminded me of Gisborne, and our local campaign to remind visitors to our, admittedly much smaller, airport of all the famous people who have been born and raised in our local slice of paradise. Gisborne has to do this because we are a small, provincial city which struggles with self-confidence in the face of the rest of New Zealand. It seems, no matter what its local jewellers might seem to imply, that Sweden suffers from a similar sense of uncertainty about its identity on the international stage.
