The Museo de Arte Popular Jose Hernandez resides in an proud colonial building nearby the design hub of Buenos Aires in Recoleta.

As you enter this museum, you are provided with a text panel that includes in point form the defining elements of artesanías (craft). Here they are roughly translated:

• Be produced by manual workmanship with the use of tools of low technological complexity;
• Show an appreciable degree of processing of the raw material based on a specific skill;
• Have a recognizable functionality;
• Display an aesthetic value, which is integrated in some way with the functionality;
• Possess a recognizable cultural value in a particular socio-cultural and historical field

It seems a conservative list. The first criterion excludes craft involving digital technologies. Yet the fourth does acknowledge an aesthetic dimension. Surprisingly, in a Latin American context, nowhere in this list does it refer explicitly to craft as a traditional practice. This may be because of the profound discontinuities of Argentinean history that make ongoing traditions difficult to identify.

This discontinuity is evident in the displays. It seems a random assortment of objects, lacking the kind of narrative applied to modern art found in the nearby Museo de Bellas Artes. The objects vary dramatically in quality and are displayed in a lifeless fashion.

Yet, as often the case in Argentina, the lack of order in the official public realm enables something more spontaneous to emerge on the sideline. The temporary gallery is host to an extraordinary exhibition of contemporary jewellery inspired by Argentinean rock (not the stone, but the music!).

Unlike other ‘foreign’ imitations of Anglo rock’n roll, the Argentinean version is particularly home-grown, sung only in Spanish. It arrived in the 1970s with the emergence of ‘progressive rock’ with poetic lyrics and musical experimentation. During the 1980s, it weathered the dictatorship with the heavy nuevo rock Argentino.

To celebrate this tradition, the collective Huella Digital (Fingerprint including Juan Manuel Malm Green, Ignacio Arichuluaga and Oscar Linkovsky) created works for an exhibition Joyas del Rock (Jewels of Rock) featuring cabinets of jewellery inspired by different rock bands. Along with the jewellery, each display features graphics in the style of the music.

Here’s a translation of the text panel:

Difficult choices … Can there be a music jewellery?
Memories of childhood, memorable moments, some romance led us to choose it.
We found hearts, hands, eyes, tears, people, facts, things of Argentina.
Love stories and urban landscapes.
Social stories, and spiritual journeys.
Jewels of Rock is a tribute to our country and its culture.
An appreciation done with fire, air, water, earth and music.

The exhibition is interesting for a number of reasons. The link between jewellery and music is relatively rare (You might have thought that tango would have been their reference, but that is perhaps more for tourists). While there are graphic references to the album covers, the design of the jewellery seems to be more based on the feelings that the music evokes. As the text indicates, jewellery plays a role in paying homage to a more ephemeral medium such as music.

It’s also an interesting contrast to the Bone, Stone, Shell exhibition from New Zealand, which turned to the natural environment for a nationalist story. In Latin America, identity seems more anchored social history and cultural tradition, than an external element such as landscape. Despite this difference, both cases obviously share a privileged role for jewellery in acknowledging the historical value of their respective cultures.

Other relevant links in the Argentinean scene:

• Be My Walking Gallery in which an artist creates jewellery so that her paintings can circulate
• Juana de Arco fashion designer with outlet in Palermo that includes an excess of handmade items remixed from countries such as Paraguay
• Materia Urbana San Telmo design shop with good range of works
• Humawaca brand of accessories with distinctively Argentinean design

The work on the book about Australian and New Zealand jewellery continues now with an evening at Objectspace in Auckland. I gave an outline of rich and poor craft in Australia, while co-author Damian Skinner gave a response from a New Zealand perspective. Damian queried the essentialism in the way I had associated silver a medium of authenticity in the work of Marian Hosking. There was a considerable and engaged audience that joined in the discussion, which ranged from specifics about the rich/poor binary to the very question of categorisation itself.

The work continued the next day with a visit to the jewellery collection of the Auckland War Memorial and Museum. Here I am with Damian Skinner, Warwick Freeman and the collection technician Anne Harlow. It was an amazing opportunity to see at first hand (albeit with surgical gloves) the masterworks of recent NZ jewellery, from the first experiments with paua shell to the sophisticated use of mediated materials like photography.

This was followed by a meeting of local jewellers at Warwick Freeman’s to discuss the book. It was heartening to listen to the warm support for our venture and many interesting questions were raised. Given the difference in size between the two jewellery scenes, the question of equity was raised. Warwick said that the book is about becoming less parochial for New Zealanders, while for Australians it is about being more parochial. There’s a grain of truth in that. Areta Wilkinson suggested perhaps there should be some parity based on ratio of sheep.

Areta’s show Waka Huia at Anna Bibby Gallery consists of a baroque sideboard whose shelves contain metal objects related to the life of her great great grandfather Teone Taare TIkao to Herries Beattie. The mostly silver objects are made with great care and their variety testifies to the incredible life of their subject.

Meanwhile, on the inauthentic side, a collective of New Zealand  jewellers call Weeds invited guest jewellers into an installation at Masterworks. The monumental sideboard here was replaced by a heap of garden chairs, each of which contain it its seat quite exquisite work as you might find under a rock somewhere. There was work by Fran Allison, Roseanne Bartley, Renee Bevan, David Bielander, Andrea Daly, Sharon Fitness, Shelley Norton and Lisa Walker.

There’s such an abundance of innovative jewellery in New Zealand, I don’t think there’s any question of finding a scene that can balance that of Australia. The challenge is to find something with equivalent focus in the wide brown land.