The Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award 2006

Nicholas Bastin

Artist statement

These objects explore the relationship between the technological and the historical. They are futuristic artefacts, illustrating a snapshot of an alternate universe, mythical in time and place. This is not jewellery for the everyday wearer of a contemporary culture. These are ceremonial and symbolic body adornments, used by characters of an imagined anime/science fiction narrative. The reference point is historical Japanese body adornment and miniature objects, as well as the commercial by-products of a contemporary Japanese manga culture. The notion of incompleteness is an important entity of the work and is expressed through the objects, as well as the group as a whole. They are incomplete as elements of these objects have been ‘lost’ through an imagined timescape, but imperfect as an aesthetic concern.