'The other side' Gallery So, London.

ANU lecturer and researcher Simon Cottrell is one of eighteen Australian and New Zealand jewellery artists selected by Felix Flurry, Director of Gallery SO, London, to highlight some current preoccupations and practices on the other side of the world.

"Is there an identifiably ‘other’ side to jewellery practice from half a world away? As new cultural histories are being written to redress a longstanding Eurocentric view of the applied arts, do they identify distinct and valuable contemporary activity in the Southern Hemisphere which informs and enriches global practice? Even a snapshot of contemporary jewellery from ‘The Other Side’ entails plurality: these practitioners are subject to diverse influences; they have a variety of attitudes to the European hegemony of the past, and very different approaches to origins and national identities. The strengths they hold in common are adventurousness in the assimilation of these influences and a manifestly strong belief in the value of creative fusion.

Sara Roberts, April 2014

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