1 this is a coat (edition of 5) 2/5
$880
Hand pierced Sterling silver, vintage bull clip; 96 x 53 x 1mm
2 island retreat (edition of 5) 1/5
$880
Hand pierced Sterling silver, vintage bull clip; 100 x 50 x 1mm
3 temporarily removed (edition of 5) 1/5
$880
Hand pierced Sterling silver, vintage bull clip; 95 x 71 x 1mm
4 leaflet (edition of 5) 1/5
$880
Postcard, hand pierced Sterling silver, vintage bull clip; 147 x 116 x 12mm
5 senior moment (edition of 5) 1/5
$700 Sterling silver; 98 x 42 x 1mm
6 a brooch
$1850
Hand pierced Sterling silver, heirloom citrine & 9ct gold pendant, vintage bull clip, lanyard; 47 x 85 x 7mm, lanyard L980mm
9 Kindle (edition of 3)
$2500
Hand pierced Sterling silver, handmade chain; 107 x 35 x 1.5mm, chain L840mm
Ms Interpretation
Fran Allison believes that contemporary jewellery should reflect the time and place of its production, and that is why her new body of work Ms Interpretation faces down the vagaries of life in the here and now – Aotearoa, 2023
Allison has created a group of deeply confused objects. They are not sure whether they are precious or disposable They are not sure whether they are stylish and covetable, or articles of polemical sloganeering. Are the pierced silver brooches one-off pieces, or reusable stencils to be sprayed haphazardly onto clothing, or onto buildings, Banksy style, in the dead of night? Several of the pieces are uncertain whether they are jewellery at all, with their conference-wear styling incorporating stationery shop lanyards and bulldog clip attachments
Whatever they are, or are not, the works in Ms Interpretation memorialise our bewildering present where the triple threats of communicable disease, economic downturn, and catastrophic natural disaster are ever-present, where the precariat is a rapidly expanding social class, where mixed messages abound, and where ‘pivoting’ has become the buzzword of the 2020s to respond to the instability of our lives.
Ms Interpretation is Allison’s tongue-in-cheek attempt to shed a little light into the darkness of our present situation. She plays fast and loose with language, and the many ways it can be interpreted, by employing puns, double entendres, strategic omissions, deliberate errors of grammar and syntax – all delivered with an air of whimsy, irony and wry detachment. Hand-cut mixed letter stencils on silver plates of varying sizes feature words and phrases designed to activate curious minds and send us searching for meaning.
Island Retreat, for example, was a term used to describe Aotearoa in the early stages of the pandemic, naively differentiating our island nation as a place apart from the rest of the world where disease could be kept at bay. But place that same term on the body, either as a brooch or pendant, or as a painted stencil on a garment, and it reads completely differently. That is the appeal of language jewellery to Fran Allison and the appeal she makes to viewers to engage with the nuances of the texts. In my mind, Island Retreat in brooch form speaks to the phenomenon of social distancing – of protecting the individual self from the rest of the pack. It’s about retreating from community engagement.
But how does one interpret a piece with the stencilled words ‘a brooch’ cut from the silver plate and a 9-carat gold mounted citrine pendant attached to it? Allison tells me that the heirloom jewel once belonged to her Aunt Frances. The object has a bulldog clip attached to it, as well as a lanyard, so it could be a brooch, a necklace, or a stencil. The presence of the citrine complicates the story, however. Precious and non-precious collide rendering it another confused jewel in a company of confused jewels, like another piece in the line-up that is blank on the front and has ‘senior moment’ embossed on the back. The piece operates as a witty take on the momentary blanks that people of a certain age experience more often than we care to admit.
Fran Allison is always on the look out for interesting signs. During a recent trip to Japan, she was struck by a sign she encountered in a public garden that read, Beautification Enforcement Area. She found the sign hilarious, with its completely unnecessary hostility.
“I mean, why didn’t it just say Beautification Area,” she points out, “rather than enforcing the beautification of this particular patch of ground?”
The sign joined Allison’s collection of interesting phrases, and duly made its way into Ms Interpretation where it operates as another striking case of the way meaning shifts when words are placed on the body. As an article of adornment, Beautification Enforcement Area could relate to the subject of the use of filters on social media apps to modify our appearance, or more dramatically, the proliferation of cosmetic surgery and other interventions to attain unrealistic, age defying ideals of beauty and perfection. Allison mentions that a recent article in The Guardian noted that ‘ a third of girls say they won’t post selfies without enhancement.’
What are we to make of Fran Allison’s placement of a replica Tennis biscuit brooch among the line-up of works for Ms Interpretation, for no particular reason, it seems, than to act as a quirky pause in the group of text pieces. There’s also a fake ice cream sundae that has a wafer extending from it embossed with the word ‘Waffle’.
“But it’s a wafer,” I say, “not a waffle”.
“I know it is,” Allison replies with a knowing smile. “It is what it isn’t.”
It becomes apparent that a key element of Ms Interpretation is that you cannot believe, or trust, what you see.
A number of badges are included in the exhibition. When I asked Allison about them she said that “when you realise you are living in a significant historical moment, the impulse to memorialise it in some way is overwhelming I wanted to make something to mark Covid, so I made the Personal Space badges with an open hand gesture that tells people to keep their distance.” There is also a group of six Power/Play rings featuring the familiar symbols from a tv remote control: on, fast forward, fast backward, play, pause, stop. The buttons on the Power/Play rings even depress with a satisfying clicking sound, just like the real thing, which gives you the illusion of agency, or control, but it is only an illusion.
Allison’s Power Play rings were in part inspired by something she witnessed many years ago. The partner of one of her friends would point an invisible remote control at her and pretend to press the pause button when he wanted her to stop talking. This act of disempowerment and silencing made a deep impression on Allison and the story eventually found voice this suite of rings.
Ms Interpretation offers us many possible actions to take, many things to discover, but also many things to doubt. It pays to be aware that Fran Allison herself is Ms Interpretation, throwing us off balance, keeping us guessing, baffling us with possible interpretations, all of which could be valid, or none of which could be.
Bronwyn Lloyd