Aotearoa Jewellery: Unmapping & Remarking

This exhibition brings together artists from Aotearoa whose practices move between the conceptual and the wearable. It asks how jewellery might unsettle familiar geographies and open space for new readings through material, form, and gesture.

In response to the 25th Sydney Biennial’s theme Rememory, the artists explore how jewellery can locate us, displace us, or carry traces of the personal, ancestral, and collective. It reflects on how memory is held, mapped, or re‑marked across bodies, landscapes, and histories, proposing jewellery as a site where meaning shifts, connection emerges, and renewal becomes possible.

Unmapping & Remarking exhibition will run from April 16 to May 2, 2026, at Stanley Street Gallery, Sydney.

Fran Allison

Artist Statement:

When traveling I encountered a sign in Japan reading ‘This is a Beautification Enforcement Area’ on a meticulously tended lawn. Reimagined as jewellery, its meaning is shifted, hinting at a social pressure to always look good. (As a stencil, it also offers a quiet subversion, allowing the wearer to re-assert power and sow dissent).

Some of the works transform men’s discarded silk ties (symbols of masculinity and corporate authority) into jewellery. This reworking also invites viewers to reconsider the relationship between identity, adornment and the subtle structures that shape the way we present ourselves.

All these pieces respond to a bewildering present marked by instability, mixed messages, and image-consciousness, using humour and displacement to prompt new interpretations.

They are designed to trigger a search for meaning, placing words and objects out of their original context and onto the body to create a different possible interpretation.

Andrea Daly

Artist Statement:

These works document the collision between the stories that permeate our culture and my own lived experiences. I’m paying attention to the ideologies that are meant to guide our journeys and lead us toward predetermined destinations: behave this way and you’ll marry the handsome prince; buy a house because every family should own one; work hard and you’ll get ahead. These narratives hum constantly in the background, but they become sharply visible when they fail to deliver the promised outcome.

I’ve always been a storyteller, and each work in this exhibition feels like a small exclamation or warning — a cautionary tale of paths that have slipped off course. By recognising our dominant beliefs as just that, stories, we create room to listen to others and to notice the ones we’ve overlooked.

As we go through the process of unmapping and remarking — remarking as in looking again, with attention — I’m asking whether we can find alternate and more promising ways to navigate our lives in the world.

Biography

Andrea Daly’s practice centres on the stories that cultures, communities, and individuals tell themselves — and how these narratives shape, direct, and sometimes constrain the ways we understand and move through the world. She selects materials for both their narrative resonance and their aesthetic presence, allowing each work to speak through its substance as much as its form.

Daly studied in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, and was a partner at Fingers Gallery for 26 years. Her practice spans making, thinking, writing, talking, and teaching, reflecting a long-standing commitment to contemporary jewellery as both an artistic and discursive field.

She exhibits nationally and internationally, and her work is held in public and private collections.

Caroline Thomas

Artist Statement:

With these pieces, I am mapping memories and making marks. The pieces are made from metal fragments that I have picked up over time on my daily walks with my dog, objects whose functions are unclear but whose shapes and lines are somehow compelling to me and anchor me to a time and place and my experience of moving through the world.

A couple more items are decorative metal pieces I bought at a local market, and two further objects have been formed by me, in emulation of the original metal objects found while walking. I have made cords for these objects to turn them into neckware; some cords are interchangeable, allowing the objects to be arranged and rearranged around the body. 

The greenstone and the seed pearls come from broken necklaces that belonged to my late mother. Through making, these inherited materials relocate my mother’s presence into new contexts, remarking shifting realities while keeping their private journey intact. When these works move into other hands, I imagine them continuing to travel, accumulating new meanings as they go.

To me, the pieces appear to be speaking a language not yet fully deciphered—full of meaning, shaped by process, and continually shifting as they are worn, handled, and reconfigured.

Biography

Born in London to Kiwi parents, Caroline studied History of Art at Edinburgh University and worked for many years in the publishing and heritage sectors in the UK. Graduating from Whitireia NZ in her 40s, she has since concentrated on compensating for all the years she spent not making art.

Renée Pearson

Artist Statement:

These works are a reflection on personal identity and storytelling. The spark for these pieces was the story of my ancestors on the tea plantations of south India, a collision between cultures and a story now with many missing parts. Using the form of a teacup, an object so imbued with ideas of family, domesticity and connection yet also with history of conflict, colonialism and culture. These objects are marked with patterns adapted from kolam designs, traditionally drawn with rice flour in front of entranceways in south India, such ephemeral offerings.

I think of these works as a celebration, of connection and belonging, the power of story. Yet also a mourning, for the stories that have been lost, that have been intentionally obscured or that have fragmented and faded over time.

Biography

Renée Pearson is a visual artist, stone carver and jeweller. Born in Ōtautahi, Christchurch in 1991, Renée grew up in a small village in the southern alps of New Zealand. These formative years, exploring the surrounding landscape, fostered a passion for the land that grew alongside her, and continues to be an important influence in her work.

Renée completed a Certificate in Design at Christchurch Polytechnic in 2012 and a Bachelor of Applied Arts at Whitireia Polytechnic in 2018. She has had work exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally and was the recipient of the Talente award for emerging artists in 2018.

Grace Yu Piper

Artist Statement:

‘Stitches and Stones’ explores the relationship between fabric and stone, facilitating a dialogue between these two materials, with myself acting as an imperfect interpreter. While this work focuses primarily on material exploration, it is also an ode to my love of rock hounding on the beaches and in riverbeds of Aotearoa.

Biography

Grace Yu Piper is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based contemporary jeweller who graduated from Whitireia in 2017 with a Bachelor of Applied Arts.

Her practice explores the functionality of jewellery and seeks to challenge our preconceived notions of what jewellery is. Material exploration is often the starting point for Grace’s work, and stone is her material of choice.

Exhibition highlights include Schmuck 2019 and Schmuck 2026 in Munich, Germany and He momo, nā te whanau — it’s a family trait – The 2nd Aotearoa Jewellery Triennial, at The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, NZ.

Moniek Schrijer

Biography

Moniek Schrijer is a contemporary jewellery artist from Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai – Lower Hutt, Schrijer’s practice orbits around the transformation of new, second-hand, recycled, and found materials; these markers of human existence and the natural world are worked into intricate, thought-provoking pieces that balance artistry between jewellery, sculpture, and wall-mounted objects. Her creations move seamlessly between the flat plane and the third dimension using traditional and unconventional jewellery techniques, offering a unique interplay between form, texture, and light.

Brendon Monson

Artist Statement:

My work as a jeweller is rooted in memory of place, of craft, and of inheritance. Using CNC technology, I carve repurposed native New Zealand and Australian timbers into wearable objects that speak to both personal and collective histories.

Each piece reflects my deep connection to Aotearoa’s landscapes and my own whakapapa, shaped by generations of carpenters in my family line.

Drawing inspiration from Victorian colonial architecture, I explore the tension between ornament and structure, legacy and loss. The intricate fretwork, turned balusters, and decorative trims of that era are reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. Miniature relics that speak of a complex past.

Biography

Brendon is a Dunedin based artist that has exhibited throughout New Zealand internationally. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2013 at the Dunedin school of Art, where he currently works as a technical teacher and night class tutor.

Shane Hartdegen

Artist Statement:

Through this body of work, I consider how the object could be presented and re-presented to reflect a deep memory of a brutal and unjust history.

Within the context of Unmapping / Remarking, the work reflects on how materials—and bodies—hold memory. It considers meaning mapped onto objects, how it can be obscured, and how it might be re-marked through making. Jewellery becomes a space where these shifts occur: where violence and care, concealment and revelation, coexist, and where the charged histories embedded in this material remain present even as it is transformed.

Rather than provoking for its own sake, the work seeks to make visible what is often hidden—inviting a closer reading of material, history, and the systems that shape them. In doing so, it asks how transformation might occur without forgetting, and how objects can carry both the weight of their past and the possibility of something else.

Biography

Shane Hartdegen is a jewellery designer, maker, and educator working in Aotearoa New Zealand. His practice is grounded in contemporary jewellery, where material exploration and technical processes are used as tools for critical inquiry and creative expression. Shane’s work engages with the evolving role of jewellery beyond traditional adornment, positioning it within a broader art and cultural context.

Alongside his studio practice, Shane is actively involved in teaching, where he is committed to developing technically capable, conceptually driven practitioners. He emphasises the importance of integrating workshop skills with critical thinking, enabling students to navigate both industry and creative pathways. His approach reflects a belief in jewellery as a dynamic and evolving discipline within contemporary craft.

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Vanessa Arthur

Artist Statement:

My practice focuses on unearthing small moments of subtle awe or everyday wonder. It considers the benefits of gazing in awe. That is when we experience awe-inspiring landscapes or events, both positive and negative, we become less individualistic, more generous, reflective and feel a greater sense of connection to others and to our place in the wider world community.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the practice of looking and observing and eyewear as a tool of activation.

Recently, I spent time with Brian Adam in his Titirangi studio learning the eyewear-making process. Brian’s early Pāua eyewear are some of my favourite objects. My Wonder Goggles series gives a nod to these works and considers the function of eyewear as not just protection and enhancement, but as an object to direct our gaze.

Constructed using a blend of jewellery and eyewear making techniques and formed with precious metals, Pāua industry offcuts, paint and pearls. The shape of the Wonder Goggles ‘lens’ guides the wearer’s gaze up and out, bringing focus to their present surroundings.

Biography

Vanessa Arthur is a jeweller and artist based in Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay, Aotearoa. She has exhibited nationally and internationally for more than a decade. In 2011, she completed a Bachelor of Applied Arts at Whitireia NZ, and shortly afterwards was selected for Handshake, a leading national mentorship programme for contemporary jewellers. In 2025 Arthur was awarded a Creative New Zealand fellowship & presented her solo exhibition ‘Wonder Goggles’ at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga.