these deep yet invisible bonds giving me a place in this world | delicate hoops of circling memories capturing moments long gone | intertwining past layers of self | links to those who came before me | to those who will come after me | small enough to move alongside life | precious enough not to be forgotten | some lost in the scattering of the wars | the upheaval of change | others guarded and collected | worn and carried through this world | not chosen for me | not chosen by me | simply passed on as a matter of natural course | unique yet generic | personal yet recognisable |coming together in an abundance of possession | a testimony of lives strung together by chains of choice and chance
these deep yet invisible bonds giving me a place in this world | delicate hoops of circling memories capturing moments long gone | intertwining past layers of self | links to those who came before me | to those who will come after me | small enough to move alongside life | precious enough not to be forgotten | some lost in the scattering of the wars | the upheaval of change | others guarded and collected | worn and carried through this world | not chosen for me | not chosen by me | simply passed on as a matter of natural course | unique yet generic | personal yet recognisable |coming together in an abundance of possession | a testimony of lives strung together by chains of choice and chance
Jewellery often outlives its owners – its durable materiality overcoming human mortality and decay. Possession accumulates and collections are born. When passed on through generations, a tradition familiar to most cultures, it can carry intricate layers of meaning and of personal value, bridging one time to another.
When I open the jewellery boxes that I have guarded as treasures since my childhood and look through all that has been passed on to me, it breathes of my family – the unique mixture of my heritage. The jewellery originates from people who partly knew each other and partly did not, who partly spoke the same language and partly did not – an unlikely gathering of personalities meeting now in the materiality of their possessions, serving as an extension of the owners’ presence in this world.
It goes back three generations, the oldest being from my great-grandparents. As in most families in Europe these generations were marked by the second world war in some way or other. Personal experiences against the background of war and migration have been told and re-told, forming the collective memory of a family, families that make up society.
This is a collection of traces, a manifestation of lives being strung together and a reminder that war and migration are not something unknown and foreign but rather something that is rooted in many family (hi)stories – something that can happen to anybody and is part of our heritage.
soundscape by Graham Welsh