1839 EXCHANGES
JEWELLERY BY JASON HALL
curated by Damian Skinner
“An exhibition about jewellery, identity and cultural exchange explored through a series of amulets created for Frederick Edward Maning”
Since 1998 Jason Hall’s jewellery has been asking questions about Päkehä identity. His work represents a consistent struggle to negotiate being Päkehä through an awareness of the traditions and craft of contemporary jewellery in Aotearoa. 1839 Exchanges: Jewellery by Jason Hall is an exhibition about jewellery, identity and cultural exchange explored through a series of amulets created for Frederick Edward Maning, an Irishman who arrived in Aotearoa in 1833 and became a trader. Maning is a well known Päkehä Mäori, a term that refers to Europeans who lived as Mäori in the early phase of colonisation. Maning, who initially advised Mäori not to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, later became a land court judge in the 1860s, and a member of the European colonial gentry.Most cultures have made use of the amulet, in which a part of what is feared (commonly a tooth or claw) is strung up and worn in order to ward off the object of fear. Hall’s works draw a parallel between the amulet and the tension that sits at the heart of settler societies around the question of native and indigenous, and explores how settlers might construct a convincing claim of belonging to a land they have stolen.1839 Exchanges: Jewellery by Jason Hall features essays by the exhibition curator, Dr Damian Skinner, and David Colquhoun, curator of Manuscripts at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.
ISBN 9780473128500 (pbk)
RRP NZ $20 plus packaging and posting
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