Schmuck 2010 (PART #1)

kate, gillian & me.

Austr(alien)

Visiting somewhere new isn’t a foreign concept, it’s the foreign part that is, well, foreign. I arrived in Munich after spending a week in Madrid with my Family (I now understand why family holidays are such oddities), and it seemed that I was unprepared for the snow, the overwhelming amount of jewellery I was about to observe and they quantity of bread and beer that I was going to consume over the next six days.

I unfortunately arrived into Munich on the tail end of Schmuck, missing a good portion of the program (I did manage to catch about 15 exhibitions out of the possible 28 or so on the program) but spent my first night meeting up with the New Zealand contingent who very kindly filled me in on what I had very jealously missed out on. Later that evening after a few goodbyes I found myself wondering around the very cold and snow lined streets of Munich with two Talente participants, Gillian Deery (nz) and Kate Britchford (aus.) who allowed me to tag along with them to an Academy Student night. It was in a little bar where the bar staff wore shirts that said “your Sunday is my Monday” that I had the chance to meet, if only for an exceedingly brief moment, a man whose work I had ogled over for years, who I had only ever dreamed of meeting, and of the witty banter I imagined we would partake. My first (and only) meeting with Otto Kunzli, sank lower than the anchor on the titanic, it started with a handshake, proceeded with a high-pitched “hello” and ended a second later with a nervous schoolgirl giggle. This was perhaps one of the first moments I really felt like an Austr(alien), in another world and notching up yet another moment of life experience.

I have often wondered if Jewellery is not best observed through the mist of a hangover. It’s that state of fragility that requires you to muster your strength and focus all your attention to the task at hand just so you can make it through the day, and it was in this condition that I was to observe my very first Schmuck.

To be continued...