Wearable sculpture / Post-Colonial Gold Short version.... Presence — the active refusal to disappear This ring is a large, dark and damaged fragment with small traces of gold. It is not jewellery, but a wearable sculpture: an object that makes rupture, pressure and survival visible on the body. In dialogue with Zhanna Kadyrova, the ring is connected to material that carries history — stone, tiles, concrete, architecture, city, war and everyday life. Just as Kadyrova allows fragments to speak without smoothing over their rupture, this ring remains rough, heavy and present. Within Post-Colonial Gold, gold stands for a new value. Not for luxury, decoration or possession, but for what becomes visible when something continues to exist despite pressure, loss or damage. That new value is Presence: the active refusal to disappear. read more... This ring is large, dark and irregular. It does not seem made to please. Its surface is rough, crusted and damaged, as if the object has passed through pressure, heat or collapse. Small traces of gold remain visible within the dark mass. These golden traces do not make the object more beautiful. They point to another value. Within Post-Colonial Gold, gold does not stand for luxury, decoration or possession. Gold stands for a new value: not shine, perfection or economic status, but what continues to exist despite pressure, rupture and damage. The object The ring is not jewellery in the classical sense. It is a wearable sculpture: a fragment placed on the body and therefore carried into public space. What could normally be seen as residue, debris or damaged material receives a different position here. Not because it is polished or embellished, but because it is carried as something that holds meaning. The ring does not ask to be admired for beauty. It asks for attention because it remains present. Material The material appears dark, petrified, burnt or compressed. The surface carries traces of tension. The ring does not seem new, but left behind. That is precisely where its strength lies. The object does not pretend to be intact. It shows its rupture, its weight and its resistance. The golden traces do not mark what is “beautiful”, but what carries value: survival, presence, residue, history. The value Presence — the active refusal to disappear Presence does not simply mean being present. It means remaining present when something is under pressure. It is the value of a body, material, culture or memory that does not disappear, even when violence, loss, erasure or instability acts upon it. In this ring, Presence becomes visible as endurance. The ring remains visible without pretending to be whole. It carries damage not as weakness, but as proof of continued existence. In dialogue with Zhanna Kadyrova The dialogue with Zhanna Kadyrova begins with material that carries history. Kadyrova works with stone, tiles, concrete, asphalt, glass, architectural remains and found objects. In her work, material is never neutral. A tile is not only a tile. A stone is not only stone. A fragment is not only waste. Material carries traces of city, labour, ideology, war, destruction and everyday life. This is where her work touches this ring. Kadyrova shows that damaged or everyday material can acquire a political and cultural presence. She does not make fragments smoother or more beautiful, but allows them to keep their tension. In her work, material is allowed to speak from its own rupture, use and history. This ring does something similar on the scale of the body. The object remains rough, heavy and partly closed. But because it is worn, it becomes active: a fragment that moves, is seen and opens a conversation. The dialogue with Kadyrova helps bring the value of Presence out of the object. Not presence as visibility for the sake of being seen, but presence as the refusal to disappear from view. Resonance with Ukraine In relation to Ukraine, Presence carries an additional weight. When cities, homes, landscapes, bodies and cultural memories are under pressure, remaining present becomes an act. Kadyrova’s work shows how art can emerge from material that is not separate from war, loss and reconstruction. Her practice makes visible that culture does not exist only in major monuments or museums, but also in fragments, remains, traces of use and objects that continue to speak. This ring connects to that logic. It is not an illustration of war and not a dramatic symbol. It is the carrier of a value that is urgent now: the capacity to remain visible, rooted and alive when disappearance threatens. Within Post-Colonial Gold Within Post-Colonial Gold, this ring becomes part of an international mesh network of values, female artists and wearable sculptures. The ring brings Ukraine — Zhanna Kadyrova — Presence together in one physical object. Through the QR code, it opens a digital layer of knowledge, context and dialogue. But the first encounter is bodily: the ring is large, rough and present. It makes clear that value does not only lie in possession, shine or perfection. Value can also lie in what is damaged and still continues to exist. Here, gold becomes the marker of a new value: Presence as the force not to disappear. An impression of the work is presented within the ANASAEA environment. The QR interface is part of the wearable sculpture and gives access to the digital layer, where more information about the artist can be read in this blog.
