Jewellery Topos
RMIT Postgraduate Student Exhibiton at Galerie Marzee


Jewellery is a bearer of cultural and historical meaning and memory. In particular it is concerned with the relations of those meanings with the personal and urban settings, acting as a way of defining or interpreting ‘topos’ (which means ‘of place’, Greek). The concern of this jewellery research is to recognise and explore the ways the jewellery artefact opens our engagement with, and understanding of the personal and external places we inhabit. Jewellery conveys settings of human identity and presence as well as external settings such as urban spaces and ‘topos’ takes on a broader significance as place itself becomes an expanded notion.
There are many places jewellers can ‘go’ but there are four broad topographical influences.
Topos of remnant, reject industrial materials, found and collected residue materials and objects, remnant domestic and public detritus.
Topos of private and personal place, intimate locations, human body, internal architectural spaces, domestic applications.
Topos of public place, streetscapes, external spaces and community locations.
Topos of historical and cultural locations, personal histories and poetries.
“Place is perceived as in some sense ‘bounded’, particularly in relation to the seemingly endless extension of space.” “Place is not a one dimensional notion; it is much more than a physical location. Places are both material and mental constructions; they are locations or sites, as well as personal, intangible and mythical webs of associations and memories.”
Galerie Marzee
Lage Markt 3 / Waalkade 4
6511 VK Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Filed under: RMIT | 2 Comments
Tags: Lucy Hearn, Natalia Milosz-Piekarska, RMIT


Fantastic pieces of jewellery, thanks for sharing. I particularly love the white wing brooch.