Ockham Lecture: Jewellery with Annabel Davidson

Join us for the final Ockham Lecture of 2025 with jewellery editor, writer, stylist, and author Annabel Davidson.

Annabel has edited the jewellery issue of Vanity Fair for the past 12 years (among a host of other impressive adornment and journalistic endeavours), and this has informed a unique perspective on adornment. In this lecture she will discuss "jewellery as a global art-form that goes back to our Neanderthal ancestors, and encompasses materials from gold and diamonds to meteorites and eagle talons, human teeth, mammoth bone and NASA-funded aerogel used to trap space dust."

Annabel will share "some of the most fascinating things I have learnt about jewellery over the decades, and some of my favourite experiences with makers, mines, and museums."

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Annabel Davidson is a jewellery editor, writer, stylist, and author who has been editing the jewellery issue of Vanity Fair for the past 12 years, and writes for publications like the New York Times, British Vogue, the Financial Times, the Telegraph.

She has authored a book on beloved British brand David Morris and contributed to a books on heritage Brazilian tourmaline company Cruzeiro Mine and the Phaidon Big Book of Jewellery.

Annabel now lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland after 20 years abroad.

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The Ockham Lecture series is an annual programme of lectures and panel discussions across different themes that critically engage with craft, design and architecture. This programme is supported by Objectspace's Lead Partner Ockham Residential.