Thahab

It all started with one of my mother’s 22k gold earrings. Looking at it, I was struck by the ubiquity of gold, and its privileged regional status in the creation of wearable jewellery. We rarely pause to consider the exuberance of this material. Nor do we ever reflect on the means of (re)production of such pieces, and slippery questions of authorship and authenticity as designs circulate in the market. Who actually made the first piece of my mother’s earring? Is the earring merely a copy of a copy? What shapes our expectations of what a ‘final’ piece should look like? What does the apparatus of the mould reveal about its own inexhaustible reproducibility? And how is this complicit with the consumerist drive that propels us to desire more and more?

This installation very simply examines the complexity of reproduction: by freeze-framing a step in my process, I interrogate the primacy of ‘finality.’ The viewer is invited to slow down, step back, and consider not only how ubiquity, reproducibility, and desire commingle, but also how this triangulation impacts authorship and supposed ‘artistic’ authenticity.

Components: Earring moulds, booklet, absence.