Something wonderful at The Dowse

Emma from Emma Makes kind­ly vis­it­ed and revis­it­ed  — Wun­der­rū­ma: New Zealand Jew­ellery  exhi­bi­tion at The Dowse  for us.

Each time I return to Wun­der­rū­ma: New Zealand Jew­ellery I find some­thing new I want to own. It began at the open­ing with Emi­ly Valentine’s King­fish­er Brooch (2013).

“Is that a bird?” said the friend I was with.

Yes it is – lit­er­al­ly a whole bird mount­ed flat out as if ready to take off, its bright blue under-feath­ers pok­ing through sen­si­ble brown and look­ing at once like a muse­um spec­i­men and some­thing I’d be keen to break out of its case.

Next on my list of cov­etable objects is Ran­dell Cot­tage Jew­ellery — a qui­et group­ing of jew­ellery and trin­kets found, ‘in a small hole behind the chim­ney’ when Thorndon’s Ran­dell Cot­tage was ren­o­vat­ed in the 1990s. They sit adja­cent the case hold­ing King­fish­er Brooch – I’d hard­ly tak­en a step into the show before find­ing two pieces that delight­ed me.

In essence, jew­ellery is art to have and to hold – pieces to cov­et, to wear and to want. The thing with Wun­der­rū­ma, the thing which has made me sound as demand­ing and mate­ri­al­is­tic as Veru­ca Salt, is the set up – this is a show that is designed to encour­age dis­cov­ery.

To say The Dowse has been ambi­tious in their exhi­bi­tion design is an under­state­ment. It was all hands on deck in the lead-up as the team assem­bled, glued and sta­pled a series of rather spe­cial Per­spex cas­es. They sit three to a group­ing and are stacked, which means vis­i­tors look – they real­ly look – at the art. At the open­ing and at a lat­er event I watched groups of all ages duck and weave, gig­gle, point and delight as they wove in and around, up and down the Per­spex maze.

“Huh,” I thought towards the back of the room, “that case is emp­ty;” only to dis­cov­er the small­est of brooches hid­den in the cor­ner.

At one point I had to stop myself lying on the floor to get a bet­ter look at a set of met­al leaves (Roy Mason’s Pen­nies from Heav­en (2012)) just to prove they weren’t in fact ‘real’ leaves. They sit on the edge of the show, halfway in, but are also neat­ly reflect­ed by a sim­i­lar, and much more oxi­dised, leaf that forms part of the afore­men­tioned Ran­dell Cot­tage Jew­ellery col­lec­tion.

It’s these kinds of ‘acci­den­tal’ themes and jux­ta­po­si­tions that fill the show and pro­vide rewards on sub­se­quent view­ing.

Cura­tors War­wick Free­man and Karl Fritsch say in their cat­a­logue of the show ($25.00 from MINE The Dowse shop) that they chose the show based on pieces they like. Wun­der­rū­ma has clear­ly been devel­oped by peo­ple who’ve held it close for a long time – tak­en time to think through deci­sions and make choic­es that are instinc­tive and ingrained so that themes of mate­ri­als, styles, shapes, time and mean­ing are cre­at­ed almost as if by osmo­sis.

Last time I caught up with direc­tor Court­ney John­ston she told me, “The com­plaints about the exhi­bi­tion design have died down.”
There’s no doubt the cura­tors and The Dowse are brave in their choice to show Wun­der­rū­ma in this stacked case con­fig­u­ra­tion. They’ve gone one step fur­ther and removed the labels too, mov­ing details about artists and mate­ri­als to a room book­let instead.

The Dowse has cre­at­ed a show which, through design, encour­ages vis­i­tors to look and dis­cov­er – much bet­ter than any text wall pan­els, flat screen TVs or oth­er types of muse­um inter­pre­ta­tion could achieve.

Wun­der­rū­ma is free and on at The Dowse (45 Laings Road, Low­er Hutt) until 28 Sep 2014. Find out more at http://dowse.org.nz

About Emma Makes

Emma Makes is a crafter with a day job who lives in Wairara­pa. She likes good books, smart peo­ple, mak­ing things and sil­ly jokes. She sells online at www.emmamakes.com and you can talk to her on Twit­ter @emmamakes