ABOUT
In a historical, political and social moment where beliefs, values, popular sovereignty, peace, spirituality and the natural resources of the world are in constant danger, I had a pressing need to find a common thread that would lead me to represent, through contemporary jewelry, the depth, the essence of memory, the unconscious and the purity of nature.
In this research I came across something majestic, magical and almost unknown: the imagination of the natives of North America.
I started from the word "wakan" which, beyond the simple term, is a collective representation of the cosmological vision of the natives with which they tried to explain the inexplicable, the incomprehensible, the mystery, everything that is out of the ordinary.
As a recurring element in their daily life there is the concept of invisible power (manitou) whose holders are also the natural elements, but mainly the animals with whom they try to live in harmony.
Objects, animals, plants, atmospheric phenomena are transformed into magical and extraordinary because each one possesses a power, be it active, like the wind that pushes the clouds, or passive, like a stone, a piece of wood, a bone or a horn, with its strength of resistance and endurance.
In my research I found the essence of spirituality that I imagine as the representation of that mysterious power that penetrates everything and makes it part of the entire universe.
So, with this approach, I tried to give an extraordinary, magical and powerful sense to each element that over the years the flora and fauna have made me encounter and that I have jealously guarded as a "wakan".
I thought I could do a rereading from the perspective of contemporary jewelry and give recognition and importance to those amulets, tools, ornaments that for centuries have been part of the culture of the natives of North America, where the sacred spirit of the wakan embodies the ancestral bond, now almost forgotten, of man with nature.