Maria Valdma, 2020, Estonia

Off

According to the conceptual idea (“Museum”) of this year’s International Biennial of Contemporary Metal Art METALLOphone, I have chosen to submit pieces from my jewellery collection “OFF” (2016). The pieces are made of burned wood and gold. With fire you seem to document a certain moment – the act of burning reminds of something characteristic to musealization. Preservation of both casual and intentional encounters, paused thoughts and emotions have been conservated in pieces of jewellery. This is an archive that has started from an act of giving up, a day that passed by became a memory:
The door was locked and that was it. The key was left to its regular place, the hallway, next to the fridge.
One could have thrown them into a container nearby.
I forgot about the asparagus and the fern. For a moment I even felt sorry.
I sneaked back to the yard in the dark. In a hurry I tore off all peony blossoms. All of them.