Anna%20Davern Works

B. , Australia

EDUCATION

My practice incorporates the technique of assemblage and collage to make jewellery, objects and small dioramas. I use salvaged materials, particularly recycled and printed metal to question long held ideas about Australia’s cultural identity.

I am driven to make work that encourages a physical engagement with objects in order for them to become wearable. The format and narrative of the diorama allows me to invite the viewer to play with the elements of the tableau and in the process, realise that some of them have moveable parts and components that can be removed to be worn as jewellery.

My wearable jewellery mostly takes the form of the brooch or the neckpiece: the brooch, as it has an extensive role to play in describing and communicating a wearer’s cultural identity, and the neckpiece, as it references the colonial practice of presenting breastplates to indigenous peoples by British colonists in an attempt at imposing a European system of social order.