Saturday, July 11

Book for one of three sessions: 11am, 12pm, 1pm

Cost - $20 | all materials provided

Join leading contemporary jeweller Areta Wilkinson (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) in this special hands-on workshop to create your own piece of jewellery using stone-age technologies.

Using copper pieces and river stones from Te Awa Kairangi, Areta will demonstrate the stone hammering method she uses to create her adornments, leading participants to create their own unique wearable piece to take home.

Describing her stone hammering method, Areta says, “I’m using a tool once utilised by all our ancestors, recording the landscape on metal and creating narratives of place.”

Each session is limited to 8 people, so be sure to book – places will fill fast!

About the artist

For over 27 years, Areta Wilkinson (b. 1969) has investigated the intersection of contemporary jewellery with Māori philosophies and matauraka Kāi Tahu. In Whakapapa I and Whakapapa II (2018), Areta references archaic technologies and used customary hammer stone tools gathered from the Waimakariri River. The smaller hand held river rocks are used like a hammer and the larger stones become anvils. She cuts and heats the gold and silver metal before texturing with the hammer stones.

“I was looking at past artworks, tools and processes used by ancestors and having a conversation across time with those early makers,” – Areta Wilkinson

This event runs in conjunction with Ngā Hokohoko, an exhibition exploring the kaupapa of hokohoko–exchange, trade, barter–within the contemporary jewellery community in Aotearoa. The exhibition proposes hokohoko as a framework for bicultural dynamics and features the work of Pauline Bern, Matthew McIntyre-Wilson (Taranaki, Ngā Māhanga and Titahi ), Neke Moa (Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Porou, Tūwharetoa), Alan Preston, Joe Sheehan and Areta Wilkinson (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha).

Curated by Gina Matchitt (Te Arawa, Whakatōhea) 2019 Blumhardt/Creative New Zealand Curatorial Intern with thanks to the Blumhardt Foundation and Creative New Zealand.