Emma Panzou--Lespinasse-Ide-Lafargue

Everyone knows the story of the pearl. Molluscs make them when an organism finds its way into the shell. For Emma, the grain of sand that became her graduation work was a small jewellery inheritance that arrived in an orange paper bag. Within it, among other treasures, a pearl necklace.

 

Emma’s work explodes the archetype of the pearl necklace, troublingthe many ways in which value has been assigned onto it. It is a conceptual enquiry into the form that is faithful to the form itself – each necklace summoning one perennial characteristic of the iconic pearl necklace and materialising a new iteration to center that characteristic. Take for instance the extraordinarily long string of seed pearls that guides the viewer into the exhibition space. This work spotlights the hand-led body-delight of repetitive acts in craft practices. A greenish pearl necklace that has been marinating in layer upon layer of electroplating and rust speaks to the slow and unpredictable way in which the pearl grows and takes shape. Elsewhere, something fleshy and pearl-like emerges from a silver disc – it’s like watching all the frames of a stop-motion cartoon at once. The pearl and its host are made of the same material. Questions of rarity, scale and market value are presented almost museologically in Emma’s installation. What’s important is that the body of work sidesteps the emotional and political weight of the jewellery inheritance and of jewellery’s inheritances. Instead and more simply, it delights in the many possibilities of the pearl necklace.