New Zealand jeweler
Areta Rachael Wilkinson (born 1969) is a New Zealand jeweller.
Education.
In 1991 Wilkinson received a Diploma in Craft Design and in 2001 she completed a Bachelor of Design from Unitec Institute of Technology, where she studied under the esteemed Pauline Bern. In 2014 she completed a PhD in Fine Arts at Te Pūtahi-ā-Toi School of Māori Art, Knowledge and Education at Massey University in Palmerston North.
Career.
Wilkinson has been a practising jeweller for over 20 years and her work explores customary Māori adornment while pushing the boundaries of contemporary New Zealand jewellery practices.
She was a lecturer at Unitec Institute of Technology from 1995 to 2008 and a lecturer at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology from 2008 to 2009. "Her work emerges from the encounter of two things: contemporary jewelry, which she would define as a critical studio craft practice which makes objects that are grounded in an awareness of the body; and Maori systems of knowledge, which place people in specific relationships to each other and to the world and which sometimes use objects to mediate these connections."
During the 1990s, she found support for her practice through the Fingers Collective, a contemporary New Zealand jewellery store and exhibition space, and through cofounding a shared studio Workshop6.
Wilkinson has exhibited nationally and internationally and has work in both private and public institutions including Te Runanga-o-Ngāi Tahu, the Dowse Art Museum, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
In 2010, Wilkinson was artist in resident at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, where her research centred on wearable taonga (treasures) held in the museum's collection. On 28 February 2016, Wilkinson gave a lecture with Alan Preston at the Pinakothek die Moderne in Munich Germany. In 2017 Wilkinson returned to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology as a visiting fellow, and as Visiting Wolfson College Research Associate at University of Cambridge.
Personal life.
Wilkinson is of Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Irakehu and Ngāti Wheke descent.
References.
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