Fran Allison: Statement

Statement for artworks a part of 'Aotearoa Jewellery: Unmapping & Remarking' 2026

I saw ‘This is a Beautification Enforcement Area’ written on a sign on a beautifully tended lawn in Japan. By making it into a piece of jewellery I shifted the meaning. Now it hints at current societal pressures to always look good… (it's also a stencil, subversively enabling the wearer to retain a sense of power and dissent if used to stencil onto anything else!). 

This group of works endeavour to reflect the time and place of their making. The pieces aim to shed a little light (and humour) onto our bewildering present where the triple threats of communicable diseases, economic insecurity and catastrophic natural disaster are ever present, where mixed messages abound, where the pressure is on how we look, and present and reality is sometimes skewed.  

They are designed to trigger a search for meaning, placing words and objects out of their original context and onto the body creating a completely different interpretation.