Exhibition of contemporary jewellery by Melinda Young and Emily McCulloch Childs

In 2013 co-director of Everywhen Art, Emily McCulloch Childs founded the nation-wide Indigenous Jewellery Project - working with First Nations' communities in workshops lead with Kate Rohde, then from 2015 by University of New South Wales lecturer and contemporary jeweller Melinda Young.

From the desert to Arnhem Land, the Torres Strait Islands to remote communities in New South Wales and to university studios in Canberra, IJP has since worked with dozens of Indigenous jewellers to develop their practice. Outcomes have been exhibited at public galleries and award exhibitions.

During these projects Melinda and Emily have also made their own jewellery on Country - inspired by the materials, places, people, and communities with whom they have engaged. The results are now on show for the first time in The Other Side: Melinda Young & Emily McCulloch Childs.

'We have worked variously on the floor (using breeze blocks to make serviceable and sturdy jewellery ‘benches’), taken over various community halls including the theatre of an ageing RSL Club, worked on beaches and in the desert dust; even in a university gold and silversmithing workshop.

"'Each experience has been as individual as the materials and stories from Country that have gone into the artists' work,' IJP contemporary jewellery advisor & workshop educator Melinda Young

Image: Melinda Young, Future Relic Series - Fish Pool Sing Neckpiece (Shady Beach, Yirrkala, NT), 2017/2024 Plastic marine debris, 925 silver, handmade plastic bag cord