Sovereign Body / Contested Body

Artist: Melissa Cameron

Materials: stainless steel, titanium, vitreous enamel

Dimensions: 4 cm x 40 cm x 1 cm, 60 cm chain

Beneficiary: Aboriginal Legal Service - Western Australia provides legal advice and representation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Western Australia, in Criminal, Family, Civil and Human Rights Law with additional services in community legal education, advocacy and the protection and promotion of human rights.

Artist Statement: This is Body/Politic work, a series of jewels in which the medium is also the message. The front of this piece, in royal blue and beige enamel, reads ‘sovereign body’ in binary, while the other side, in blush pink and cinnamon colored enamels - viewed through chains holding the piece together - reads ‘contested body’. Our current caste and class system is replicated by the hierarchy of colors in this piece - if you are not cis, white and male your income, opportunities, health and life outcomes will always face barriers, the same ones that support the unencumbered body that is literally on the flip side.