In this installation, Wellington based object maker and contemporary jeweller, Vaune Mason, elevates the remnants of non-human lives. She says that a tendency to focus on minute things has led her to imagine "a whole world of memories untold in the lost lives of common insects, birds and animals." The viewer is encouraged to see these constructions as Mason does; not as macabre constructions, but as testament to the innumerable, yet precious, untold lives of small animals everywhere.

 

"Using mementos, photos, and passed on belongings, we build up stories of our lives," Mason observes. "We bestow and communicate the value we have for an individual's life by deifying these objects. We give status as well through rich decoration and housings for these relics. We keep photos and film of these people, and by all these means, we build up constructions ... to hang the memory of their life on."

 

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Vaune Mason is a Wellington based object maker and contemporary jeweller

Vaune Mason, Your Flight was Memory, 2010.