The Southern Charms project had a ‘shaky’ start in Chile. The workshops were very popular and produced wonderful new forms of power jewellery, but the recent tragedy of the earthquake was a dominant theme. image The Valparaiso ‘clinic’ attracted around 100 participants, thanks to the good work of Professor Patty Gunther, who has been leading [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Chile’
Upcoming Charm Schools
‘Luck is believing you’re lucky.’ Tennessee Williams image Luck is not something that sits well with a modern way of life. Modernity is largely defined against superstitious practices of the past. Magical folk remedies have been replaced by far more reliable medical science. We no longer make sacrifices to rain gods; we have more responsible [...]
Share your charms
Southern Charms: New Power Jewellery Across the Pacific Exhibition in development Announcing a project to reveal new developments in ‘power jewellery’ that bring together craft cultures across the Pacific ocean. ‘Power jewellery’ claims to not only to be an object of beauty, but also to have an effect on its wearer. Most commonly, it protects [...]
Taking Chilean pride to heart
The jewellery scene in Chile has been growing strongly in recent years. A large number of new outlets for art and designer jewellery have opened in Santiago, including work that draws from distinctively Chilean forms, such as the horse-hair weaving known as crin. Corazón de Loica Marcela Bugueiro At the end of 2009, Chile held [...]
UNESCO workshop for Artisans and Designers – who owns culture?
DSCF6048 DSCF6058 DSCF6049 DSCF6066 The UNESCO Workshop for Artisans and Designers in Santiago brought together participants from Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Colombia and Brazil. For three days, we discussed the ethics of the relationship between those who make craft products and those who develop them for markets. It was a fascinating workshop for [...]
Horse hair – the new Chilean gold
image Crin is one of Chile’s most distinctive folk crafts. In markets around the country you will find delicate forms, often taking the shape of insects, woven out of dyed horsehair. Despite its distribution around the country, almost all Crin originates from a small town called Rari. Crin appeared mysteriously around 200 years ago, as [...]
A world vision for Mapuche
Like most other colonies, the nation of Chile was established through a forced dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their land. One group proved particularly hard to displace. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Mapuche had successful resisted an invasion from the Incas. After this, they held off the Spanish for nearly 300 years, [...]
The ethical turn, turn, turn
‘The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger.’ Sholom Aleichem image As we saw a ‘linguistic turn’ transform humanities in the late 20th century, on our side of the millennium it seems that we are witnessing a wave of cultural accountability – an ‘ethical turn’. Culture is no longer ‘innocent’ of politics. An [...]
The silver lining
image A scene from November 2005, when the rise of the stock market seemed as endless as the war on terror. Below is a copy of the speech I made for the opening of the graduation show of RMIT Gold & Silversmithing 2008. It was a wonderful show. Students showed how they had mastered their [...]
The Discovery of the New Mundito
image image It’s great to see the students at the University of Valparaiso continuing to embrace creative challenges that people like Professor Gunther throw at them. I presented a workshop on the theme of El Mundo de las Cositas, in relation to the World of Small Things exhibition that is being developed for Craft Victoria [...]
