The Italian-British editor of the Journal of Jewellery Research reframes jewelry as (dis)obedient bodymatter—an active agent rather than a passively worn object.
Bernabei gave this presentation as part of the 2026 “AJF Speaker Series: Jewelry that Makes You Think,” which featured 16 talks over five days. Most of the series took place in the booth AJF shared with Arnoldsche Art Publishers at the trade fair.
SLIDE 1
Good afternoon to everyone.
I would like to thank those who invited me and the audience who is here today. I also wish to thank all the jewellery pieces present here, I hope you will enjoy my talk.
Slide: My presentation is titled Re-Conceptualising [Dis]obedient Jewellery: Material Agency and the Disruption of Normative Expectations. The title is emblematic; it is the essence, the concise summary of the content of this presentation. The title is the beginning, and so I will start precisely from here.
SLIDE 2
The key word of this entire presentation is [Dis]obedient.
This adjective — written with brackets — is a stylistic and conceptual choice often used in critical or artistic writing to suggest both obedience and disobedience at the same time. I have deliberately chosen to write it in this way to encourage critical thinking.
Conceptually, it functions as a form of strategic fragmentation: it highlights both the prefix dis- and the root obedient, drawing attention to their coexistence. It creates a semantic tension by visually holding together two contrasting ideas — obedience and disobedience — in a single word. This choice stems from a desire to disrupt the idea of jewellery as a passive object.
Another key term I will use frequently during this presentation is the agency of objects.
BUT- What is the agency of an object? To answer this, I will refer to the first definition proposed by Alfred Gell in his book Art and Agency (1998). According to Gell, objects and artefacts can be considered social agents, not because they possess intentions or consciousness, but because they:
• Cause effects in the social world
• Influence thoughts, emotions, and actions
• Mediate relationships between people
Example- I might not use- This is about effect in a causal sense. Example:
A wedding ring causes recognition of marital status → that changes behavior. For Gell, agency does not require intention. Agency is the capacity to produce effects within a network of social relations
SLIDE 3
This presentation aims to re-conceptualise the [dis]obedient jewelry that challenges anthropocentric assumptions positioning jewellery as an object designed to serve human aims. Traditional frameworks presume that jewelry fulfils predetermined functions: beautifying, signifying identity, or communicating social value, thereby stabilising it within predictable modes of wear and interpretation. Such views reinforce a model in which jewellery remains subordinate to human intention, activated only through the agency of makers, wearers, viewers and /or curators. In other words, the meaning is activated / created or activated by human agents:
• Makers → through design decisions, materials, concept.
• Wearers → through how they wear and embody it.
• Viewers → through interpretation.
• Curators → through framing, display, context
SLIDE 4
Traditional frameworks presume that jewelry fulfils predetermined functions: beautifying, signifying identity, or communicating social value, thereby stabilising it within predictable modes of wear and interpretation.
Jewelry with specific symbolic meanings in our society.
Mayoral Chains: These are elaborate ceremonial chains worn by the mayors of many towns and cities, especially in the United Kingdom, symbolizing their authority and responsibilities
SLIDE 5
Let us consider the crown: it is perhaps the most well-known symbolic jewel representing power. Its function is to signify the prestige and authority of the wearer. Yet it is also one of the most uncomfortable pieces of jewellery; when wearing a crown, one cannot move as freely as an ordinary person. Paradoxically, it is an “unwearable” piece of jewellery, yet no one would argue that it is not jewellery. I argue that this is an example of inventive opposition: the object asserts its autonomy through behaviours that exceed or even contradict human expectations of wearability and comfort.
Drawing on object-oriented ontology (Harman), and the concept of ‘cultural objects as agentic (Mc Donnell), it is argued instead that jewellery can enact forms of inventive opposition, asserting its autonomy through behaviours that exceed or contradict human expectations.
SLIDE 6
Here we see the work by Ted Noten, titled Tiara for Máxima (2002). This piece offers a subtle and gently subversive reinterpretation of the traditional function of the crown.
In this work, the crown takes the form of a helmet, with the tiara shape cut out from it. The action is witty and playful, yet simultaneously subversive. Rather than crowning the head — elevating it symbolically — the object protects it. It functions more as armour than as ornament. In this way, the work challenges the expectation that power must be displayed and precious material must be used. Unlike the traditional crown discussed before, imposing and restrictive, this piece remains fully wearable while quietly destabilising the symbolism it invokes.
SLIDE 7
In this slide I present images of jewellery pieces in which disruption occurs through a transformation of function. These objects no longer perform as expected: the surface has tarnished, a pin has broken, or a structural element has shifted. Their material agency persists — they continue to act and to affect — yet from a human perspective they appear disobedient, as they no longer conform to our expectations of durability, stability, or proper wear.
Furthermore, within a more-than-human perspective, disobedience emerges when jewellery engages in material actions that disrupt the normative choreography of wear: migrating unexpectedly on the body, tarnishing or transforming against curatorial intention, fracturing or deforming beyond the maker’s control, or imposing an intrusive physical presence through weight, movement, or instability. These gestures are interpreted not as failures but as evidence of the object’s own capacities, rhythms, and will.
Other examples: migrating- moving … behaving in a way that is annoying …for example the necklace moves when you do not want her to be moving…) situations where the jewel -A. Slips, slides, rotates, or falls, B. Moves because of gravity, sweat, heat, or body motion; C. Cannot be fully controlled by the wearer, D. Creates unexpected sensations or visibility.
SLIDE 8
This dynamic can be understood through 2 initial conceptual lenses:
Mutual influence– The jewelry and the human exist in mutual influence, yet unequally. While humans collaborate with its existence, the jewelry carries forward its own trajectory, persisting even when discarded or uncherished.
Mutual-Evolving Agency – Both human and jewelry shape/affect each other over time. The jewelry transforms through wear, exposure, and interaction, while humans are influenced by its presence, its beauty, its communicative power and sometimes its unpredictability.
SLIDE 9
Disruption of Normative Expectations
From this point, I will move quickly through ten examples of artistic strategies adopted by art jewellers to disrupt normative conventions and expectations.
Strategies of [Dis]obedient Jewellery — I have grouped them into two main categories:
1. Ambush Aesthetics (normality as disguise)
These are works that appear conventional at first glance but subtly undermine expectation. An example is the necklace by Otto Künzli, which conceals its conceptual provocation beneath an apparently familiar form.
2. Visible Revolt (clear, manifest dissent)
These are works in which disruption is explicit and immediately perceptible — for example, interventions such as a perforated black diamond, where the gesture of dissent is openly declared.
Before proceeding, I would like to clarify an important point: the maker does not begin or act alone. My position is that we need to reframe authorship and consider the maker as co-working with the object and with everything that surrounds it.
The object is shaped through a relational process that includes material properties, environmental conditions, spatial contexts, and temporal dimensions. In this sense, the maker collaborates not only with matter, but also with space and time.
SLIDE 10
Otto Kuenzli necklace. This is an example where the artist has conceived with the complicity of the memories imbued in the weddings rings a chain that is unwearable because of the unbearable memories. Wedding rings are conventionally symbols of union, continuity, and love. They are meant to be worn daily, close to the body, as signs of commitment and social recognition. In this work, however, those same rings — charged with personal histories — are transformed into a chain whose physical and emotional weight prevents it from being worn. The piece subverts the norm in two ways. First, it challenges the expectation that jewellery must be wearable. Second, it disrupts the cultural narrative of the wedding ring as a purely positive symbol. Instead of celebrating permanence and harmony, the work acknowledges rupture, loss, or trauma.
Here, memory becomes material. The emotional residue embedded in the rings acquires agency: it determines the form of the object and ultimately makes it resistant to use. In doing so, the artist once again destabilises the conventional understanding of jewellery as decorative, compliant, and socially affirming, revealing instead its capacity to carry discomfort, tension, and dissent.
Last point is that the visual quality is a kind of ambush.
SLIDE 11
Gijs Bakker, brooch, Cool Green, series: REAL, 2004 You can argue that this work transforms jewelry from: value perspective. As Liesbeth den Besten said in her 2011 book, ‘Fake and real stones blend in a unity of illusion’
SLIDE 12
Robert Smit, Neck ornament, gold 900/000, painting on gold!!!
SLIDE 13
Jan Yager’s work proposes a kind of Ambush Aesthetic (normality as disguise)
The collar appears conventional at first inspection but the expectation is subverted when you realise that the material is :crack vials, crack caps, syringes, cast silver crack caps.
Jan Yager’s work proposes a form of Ambush Aesthetic. At first, the collar appears conventional. However, this expectation is abruptly subverted when one realises that the materials consist of crack vials, crack caps, syringes, and cast silver crack caps. What initially reads as ornament is revealed to be composed of objects associated with addiction, marginalisation, and oppression. The aesthetic familiarity functions as a trap. Moreover, the viewer is almost immediately discouraged from imagining the piece as wearable. The thought of placing such materials close to the body produces discomfort. It becomes, conceptually and emotionally, an “unbearable” necklace — particularly in the context of social oppression and the histories embedded in those materials.
In this way, the work exemplifies the ambush strategy: it disguises itself as conventional jewellery, only to confront the viewer with the weight of its social and political implications.
SLIDE 14
Karl Fritsch, ring, 2007, oxidised gold, black diamond with hole. A great shock for those who would expect perfection form a precious faceted stone!
SLIDE 15
Bernard Schobinger, necklace, glass, cord, 1988, Broken bottlenecks that are visibly dangerous to be worn
SLIDE 16
This slide and the next one are dedicated to an emblematic example MAPTA, 9 March Project.
The MAPTA exhibition presented works that subverted traditional expectations of jewelry, challenging established notions of adornment, value, and propriety. As a result, the exhibition was deemed unsuitable for minors and was ultimately banned. Notably, the makers themselves did not fully anticipate the intensity of the public and institutional response. In this case, the meanings generated by the artifacts exceeded the intentions of their creators.
SLIDE 17
My work- censor female voices! This outcome illustrates how objects can operate beyond authorial control. As argued by Graham Harman, objects are not reducible to human intention; they enter into relations with other objects, institutions, and discourses, producing effects that surpass their initial conceptual framing. The exhibition demonstrates how jewelry, once placed within a broader social network, can exercise force — provoking reactions, controversy, and ultimately censorship. The banning itself becomes evidence of the objects’ capacity to act within a field of relations, generating consequences that neither the makers nor the institution fully predicted.
SLIDE 18
Now I will show four images on – Decentering the Human: Jewelry from a Post-Anthropocentric Perspective.
As artefacts relate to other artefacts (Graham Harman’s concept), if we reframe or disrupt the convention that jewelry is dependent of a human body, we reframe it within a Post-Anthropocentric Position or more-than human position. Graham says that objects interact beyond human mediation. In relation to this principle, if we look at this drawing you see a gigantic ring, with a human body placed within its setting. The idea subverts the notion completely, and jewelry is not worn by humans but the opposite. It presents a subverted world: an oversized ring in which the body itself becomes the stone.
By transforming the body into the “stone,” the work questions who or what is being displayed, possessed, or valued. Is the jewel serving the body, or is the body serving the jewel? The image destabilises conventional expectations of jewellery as an accessory and instead suggests that jewellery can structure, contain, or even control the body.
The ring is no longer a silent object; it becomes an active force that frames the human figure. In this sense, the drawing visually embodies the concept of [Dis]obedient jewellery: an object that refuses passivity and instead asserts its presence within social and bodily relations.
SLIDE 19
Obedient Jewelry: Forged for Urban landscape, Not Humans, work by Liesbet Bussche,
Les Bijoux Urbains. Gigantic necklace
SLIDES 20 AND 21
Obedient Jewelry: Forged for Nature, Not Humans
Jewellery for nature, here the concept is extended with an ecological approach. This is a piece of work by Melinda Young,
SLIDE 22
In conclusion…
By foregrounding jewellery’s ability to resist its expected service role, inventive opposition reframes the object as an active participant in lived experience rather than a passive adornment. [Dis]obedient jewellery unsettles conventional boundaries between compliance and resistance, tool and companion, craft and agency. It invites an alternative analytic orientation in which jewellery is examined not merely in terms of what it does for us but in terms of what it does with and to us.
This framework expands contemporary jewellery studies by demonstrating how dis OR obedience arises through material indeterminacy, nonhuman agency, and the limits of human control—ultimately repositioning jewellery as an autonomous, sometimes unruly, co constitutive presence within everyday life.
To conclude, I’d like to leave you with a question to ponder:
How does Jewelry directly or indirectly affect the way we act, especially when we let them influence us?
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