Suitcase Foundry (2019.15)
Catalogue Record
Collection
Maker
Will Shannon
Title
Suitcase Foundry
Made in
London
Date
2009
Description
Mixed media installation made from found suitcase, containing multiple parts, tools, materials etc. to create diorama of mobile goldsmithing workshop.
Materials and techniques
The work was made from a found suitcase and mixed media. The wall mounted case features a number of jewellery pieces made from recycled jewellery.
Dimensions
height (body): 120cm
width (body): 90cm
depth (body): 65cm
Object number
2019.15
Category
Credit
Purchase supported by Art Fund.
Maker's statement
Inspired by door to door salesman, Suitcase Foundry is a micro workspace for an inner city goldsmith. It is equipped with tools and equipment to transform old gold jewellery into new. The workplace itself is perhaps one of the most absurd of trades that you could fit in a suitcase. This is intentionally so; it typifies the notion of a new wave of micro manufacturing that may become more present in inner city life if we are to retain urban making in the cities of the future.
Devised at a time when the price of gold was making headlines the goldsmith character is an opportunist with no real experience or skills. He has a ‘can do attitude’ to craft and has created a jewellery collection that references the raw state of gold itself, the nugget. He is pioneering a cashless economy paid only in material for his craft services.
This was an early piece of work. It was one of a series of itinerant workplaces that explored the notion of making and its place in the city of the future. It was one of two graduate pieces from the RCA that set the tone for the direction of all future work.
[It was inspired by/in reference to] the travelling knife sharpener or the pedlar economy of the past.
Devised at a time when the price of gold was making headlines the goldsmith character is an opportunist with no real experience or skills. He has a ‘can do attitude’ to craft and has created a jewellery collection that references the raw state of gold itself, the nugget. He is pioneering a cashless economy paid only in material for his craft services.
This was an early piece of work. It was one of a series of itinerant workplaces that explored the notion of making and its place in the city of the future. It was one of two graduate pieces from the RCA that set the tone for the direction of all future work.
[It was inspired by/in reference to] the travelling knife sharpener or the pedlar economy of the past.