This is not art fulfilling some sort of dilettante role but doing the work that one expects it to do historically… culture moves around you

In this episode of Cultural Icons author, historian and curator Damian Skinner interviews jeweller Warwick Freeman about his seminal role in the history of object-making in New Zealand.

Their discussion ranges from defining the art-form through to locating it within the larger context of sociopolitical history. How does jewellery represent culture, how does it appropriate other cultures, how does it act as an emblem of an era, and, more importantly, how does it carry within it representations of a national identity?

By looking at Warwick’s four decades of work, his local and foreign influences, and at his studio practice this interview sheds some light on those questions and raises more about the future of the practice.

Through a conversation mainly focused on theory (with a few glimmers of biography), Warwick delves into all these queries and, in a way, explores the meaning of objects, the symbolism of materials, the nature of beauty and opulence within the narrative of a nation.