Is your contemporary jewellery ‘Body Positive’? 

 

Applications are Closed

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If Contemporary Jewellery is a body-site specific art form - then surely we must have an opinion on body positivity?  

 

Is Contemporary Jewellery sufficiently inclusive? Is Contemporary Jewellery unashamedly, or unconsciously choosy about the body that wears it? 

 

And how bound by corporeal and virtual ’systems’ (economic, consumer, political, social,  

 emotional, and OTHER…) actually is our ‘rebellious', ‘individualist’, ‘independent’ and often a bit ’shouty' artform. Who are the bodies that benefit from those systems? 

 

If we make objects to decorate the body – are we suggesting the body is not enough in itself?  

 

TempContemp wants to know how the body relates to your work and ideas: Do you consider it? How important is it? What are the choices, compromises, discoveries and inventions you make to include (or reject) bodies in your practice? 

 

Whose body do we want? Whose body do we get? Do you make jewellery for someone who looks like you? Or do you make jewellery for some fantasy body that you hope to attract? - Or are you more cynical than that and you make jewellery for any body that comes with a fat, powerful wallet. 

 

If contemporary jewellery is about the body, why do we (TC included) instinctively model it on a blank wall or a square, usually white, plinth?  

 

If contemporary jewellery is about the body AND about being non-precious - why lock it away from the bodies behind glass and a paywall?  

 

Can Contemporary Jewellery be virtual? Can it be Body Negative? Can it be independent of the body - maker or wearer? Or both? 

 

We’re asking you: jewellers, artists, makers, thinkers, dabblers, and also collectors and wearers to explore these and more ideas with us through whatever way you relate your thoughts: Jewellery, object, performance, installation, curation, and words. Let's create an eclectic and multivocal essay, make unity from dissonance, or discover tacit agreement, and (taking into account COVID practicalities and surprises) present your work and thoughts as part of the 2021 Radiant Pavilion festival in Melbourne – possibly live exhibition, possibly virtual presentation – quite likely both! 

 

We look forward to hearing from you.  

Yours corporeally, 

TC