Double Life

Golden Cut, 2006
necklace and object.
damaged plate, urushi lacquer on textile (gilded), gold, silver chain

Gésine Hackenberg is fascinated by the emotional impact of utensils from daily life. How do these ordinary objects become personally coveted? Her work seems to challenge the rather arbitrary division between objects and jewellery. The works from the Double life series can exist in both contexts effortlessly. For example, the Urushi lacquer butterfly can sit as easily on the rim of an antique dish as on the trim of a t-shirt.

She reinterprets here the ancient techniques of repairing porcelain crockery. Damaged objects were repaired in Asia with Urushi lacquer (‘Kintsugi’) or in Western countries with precious metals by a goldsmith. They eventually became even more valuable than its undamaged counterparts. Hackenberg takes the concept of restoring to another level by adding a new dimension through transforming the restored part into an independent piece of jewellery, which not only gives the object a new life but also a new purpose. It is a scintillating idea in our era of disposables.

Photography on model: Corriette Schoenaerts

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