ABOUT

In European cultures metals have become a part of cultural realities in ways that reinforce the power of monarchies and their sovereign status. Medals appear in the regalia of royal households, the aristocracy and and the military. Essentially a medal is a metal disc typically of the size of a large coin and bearing an inscription or design, made to commemorate rank, status and events. Typicall they are awarded as a distinction to someone such as a soldier or athlete.

Medals are awarded to people who achieve extraordinary things and reach pinicles in human achievement. The medals are invested with meaning and symbolism. As a consequence of colonial expansion medals have found their way into cultural contexts that supplemented precolonial cultural realities. 

In many ways the medal has become ubiquitous within the developed and developing world asv tokejns of honour and commemoration. The medals awarded to athletes at Olympic Games is a good example of this.

However ARTmedals have become collector's items. The British Art Medal Society (BAMS) was founded in 1982 to promote the art of the medal through commissions, exhibitions, publications and events. The society is affiliated to FIDEM (the Fédération Internationale de la Médaille d’Art)

The ARTmedal occupies a somewhat different space in current cultural realities in that they are by-and-large objects of contemplation, private and intimate musing, tokens of a story, and more still.

Intrestingly, Traditional Japanese clothing – first the kosode and its later evolution, the kimono – did not have pockets. Though the sleeves of the kimono could be used to store small items, the men who wore kimono needed a larger and stronger container in which to store personal belongings, such as pipes, tobacco, money and seals, resulting in the development of containers known as sagemono, which were hung by cords from the robes' sashes (obi)

Whatever the form of the container, the fastener which secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved, button-like toggle called a 'netsuke'. Netsuke, like inrō and ojime, evolved over time from being strictly utilitarian into objects of great artistic merit and an expression of extraordinary craftsmanship. Netsuke production was most popular during the Edo period (1603–1867). Currently, there are netsuke collectors who seek them out for the skills and materialty invested in these 'objects' that are likewise invested with stories and mythologigy.

In Australia's precolonial time many Aboriginal people invested deeply significant cultural meaning in objects known as tjurunga that carry symbolism to do with kinship and 'country'. tjurunga in central desert groups were 'men's business' and they were to do with a secret sacred aspect of Aboriginal people's cultural realities and their placedness. Given the increasing awareness of, and understandings of, Aboriginal sensitivities and sensibilities tjurungas become interesting reference point in TINGmaking. ...................