Rebecca Ilett & Elizabeth Shaw Exchange Tcje#3 

Rebecca Ilett – United Kingdom

The necklace I made for Elizabeth was inspired by discussing

repair and innovation, her grandmother and The Second world war. We were matched very well in creating elements of

engineering in our work as well as using themes of narrative and repair.

The starting point for this work, was acquiring some vintage

railway figures in a junk shop in Margate (for 50p) and then developing a story around them. As in much of my work I use found and disconnected objects, develop a context for them and eventually entangle them in a new story.

One of the figures bears a striking resemblance to a notorious historical figure and this made me think about conscience, and how this might impact on holiday and leisure time.

Elizabeth Shaw – Australia

Rebecca and I discovered we had similar interests in working with found items and making mechanical movements. This became the focus for our exchange. Our pairing worked really well, it turned out we had a lot to discuss. There are similarities in our inspirations and thinking about materials, mechanics and tools.

The pieces we made for each other by chance both feature a rotating mechanism. Mine has a miniature fishing reel and the necklace Rebecca made me features a Ferris wheel. Miniature representations of two notorious characters from history are the only passengers in the sole passenger pod of the Ferris wheel.