Roseanne Bartley, Link, Link, Link…, Paper and mixed media

When confronted with the phrase ‘solutions for better living', one undoubtedly thinks of the alluring IKEA-esque furnishings that promote to improve the quality of life. Such sermonising messages evoke a guilty inadequacy in the viewer and ultimately a transformation into a relenting consumer. Which is what is intriguing about this exhibition at Craft Victoria titled Solutions for Better Living. This exhibition of jewellery aims to empower the role of the wearer to become an active participant in its creation. Such a utilitarian intention seems incongruent to the exhibition title. However through the use of the modular and DIY motifs in the works as espoused by IKEA, this exhibition seems to offer an alternative. Instead of providing an autocratic model for living, it suggests a middle ground of negotiation between designers and their products and their intended users. In doing so, the designers are rethinking the trajectory of relations that crafting, adorning and viewing jewellery can entail. By actively democratising the roles of the artist and audience and highlighting the social relations integral to the works generated, the artists have engendered in the objects a complexity of interactions that exceed the confines of physical time and space.

The exhibition consists of numerous works by five artists, the first encountered being Susan Cohn's ‘I protest: LOVE NO WAR (3)' (2004). The work is made up of hundreds of badges that fragment a photograph, whose own political message is constituted by the relationships of its parts: a white glowing store front mannequin, anti-war graffiti and an image of the first female Hamas suicide bomber, Reem Raiyshi. Each badge unit is individually and somewhat impersonally numbered, each with an identical message at their centre: Love No War. The use of the pressed badges brings to the work its associations as disseminators of a political message and more importantly the inclusion of the wearer in the innumerable mass, linking nameless individuals over time and space. Cohn displays the badges as an image presented on a wall in its entirety rather than its parts separated and worn as the badge media would suggest. This move is deliberate in communicating the group; the acetate sheen of the badges eliminates the differences in the images and connects the individual pieces to their brethren. Its display also creates tension as the viewer yearns to select a badge off the wall to wear only to be prevented and forced to accept the work's potency in its wholeness.

On the contrary Roseanne Bartley exhibits two works, ‘Human Necklace' (2005) and ‘Link , Link, Link…‘ (2005- ), which are entirely dependant upon the viewer's physical participation as collaborator. Performance is a key component and highlights the social significance that becomes attached to the work when it is being made rather than the object itself. ‘Human Necklace' consists of a series of photographs documenting the formation of the symbolic shape of the necklace by participants standing in a circle, hands linked. Personally, this particular work lacks the strength of its intention. Due to the photographic medium, the initial resonance of the performance is lost rather than recreated in the exhibition space. The photographic image serves as a literal symbol flattening the complexity of the links between people to a linear two-dimensional model rather than inviting the viewer to participate. Though this comment could be said about Bartley's other work, ‘Link, Link, Link…', what differs is that the performative aspect is brought into the exhibition space. Visitors are confronted with the task to ‘draw ONE link of a chain that best describes you' upon a long roll of paper. Your input drawn upon the paper must link with the preceding one, reminiscent of the Surrealists existe. Though Bartley had intended this exercise was to be the basis of a work of gold or silver, instead she had created a work that could not be static in one object existing of one time . However, it is not the physical object that is important, rather it is the performative aspect of physically linking your contribution to what has been drawn before. This act creates an emotional relationship between the participants, the creation of a perception of what you think you are but also an assumption about what you think the previous person was. The participant begins to be concerned in not offending the previous work, in making a worthy contribution.

Kiko Gianocca, Sand to Wear, Sand, plastic bag and paper

Kiko Gianocca's ‘Sand to Wear' and ‘Dirty Hands' further extend the definition of the typology of jewellery. Each work consists of multiple small clear plastic envelopes containing an identical illustration and a portion of either sand or dirt. The illustrations serve as instructional cartoons that suggest the usage of the materials that allude rather than dictate, allowing a level of participant interpretation. This need for audience interpretation is made even more important due to the materials utilised. Jewellery is conventionally considered to be an object of beauty and desire, yet Gianocca questions that view with the use of sand and dirt, substances that are normally viewed as unsightly nuisances. However, it seems that the selection of these particular materials was chosen deliberately. Both sand and dirt can have powerful tactile ability to evoke nostalgic memories. These works then become objects of beauty and desire through its interaction with their audience, of the participant making it their own and linking themselves to a previous self of a pleasant time and space.

The exhibition concludes with a return to a more conventional model of jewellery making. ‘General Assembly' is a new work by Blanche Tilden and Phoebe Porter who collectively form Studio Hacienda. In this work, visitors personally select various metal and glass components in order to create their own brooch. The visual motifs of the perforated metal reference the urban architectural aesthetic of Melbourne and of industrial machinery. These personally selected parts are transformed into the finished work by the artists at predesignated times. As Kate Rhodes notes in the exhibition catalogue, ‘…Instead of the commodity form converting social relations into objects, objects are borne out of social relations.' Once inscribed with the date and name of the owner, each brooch is placed on display, linking potential and past participants through the commonality of the available components. However, this last act denies the potential of relations that the worn object could incite. It seems the object itself is irrelevant to the social interaction of its making and alternative documentation of the process would suffice (though not as adequately as the experience itself). When one views the brooches displayed and labelled meticulously on the wall, one wishes the object to be freed and worn by its creator/s.

All the works within the Solutions for Better Living exhibition involve varying levels of audience collaboration as integral processes in their making and their significance. This exhibition engages with this concept at varying levels and in some works with detailed consideration to the nuances of the relationships involved. With its large B1 format, the design of the exhibition catalogue invites the visitor to personally negotiate the mutable paper plane, introducing the concept of crafting their own experience from the onset. Solutions for Better Living pushes that social interaction to the fore, questioning the definitions of jewellery and suggesting a craft practice that is of group collaboration and negotiation. By engaging with the aesthetic of modular standardisation, the exhibition suggests an alternative concept of living and the impact of our actions, of interactions that exceed the confines of physical space and time.