Conversation Piece

(Beatrice Brovia, Sweden/Italy, 1985 & Nicolas Cheng, Sweden/Hong Kong, 1982)

necklace Gold Rush, 2016

gold-plated quartz crystal from e-waste, silver, hand-woven reflective thread, electrical solder
80 x 60 x 60 mm (pendant)

Conversation Piece is the collaborative practice of Beatrice Brovia and Nicolas Cheng, based in Stockholm. Having both a background in spatial architecture and design prior to craft and jewellery, their artistic practice looks for interrelations among disciplines and discourses to investigate the agency of craft and jewellery in particular.

This pendant is part of a larger body of work, Gold Rush (2016 – 2018), which investigates how gold and other precious minerals are largely used today for their physical properties – from electrical conductivity, resistance to corrosion, to radiation – in the production of consumer electronics as well as for space exploration. Gold in particular is part of a group of rare minerals on which our daily interactions, entertainment needs and communications rely: it is part of what we consume and interact with carelessly, part of the secret workings and mechanisms of our appliances and daily interactions with them.

By using gold and other minerals extracted from electronic waste, and rendering these visible on the body through jewellery pieces meant to adorn, the intention is to understand gold’s cultural meaning and power in our time.