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

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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.

Randell Cottage Jewellery
Ran­dell Cot­tage Jew­ellery

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.

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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.

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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