During my 22 years of teaching contemporary jewellery at university level, I have become ever more curious about the affective nature of jewellery and the increasing standardisation of life and identity production in society. Informed by science and multidisciplinary in nature, my practice draws on the potential of jewellery objects as a medium of socio-political knowledge and instruments of identity politics. In this lecture I consider jewellery’s capacity for defiance as a tactile and haptic medium of embodied knowledge. I discuss adornment as a statement of politics and humanity.
My talk explores how my own work may provoke profound ethical and political responses through activating affective experiences. This lecture highlights the interactive dimension of contemporary jewellery as a visual arts practice that literally affects one’s embodied experience through a haptic perception that operates beyond sight.
Appointed as Senior Lecturer in MFA Craft (Jewellery) in August 2025, Johanna Zellmer holds a PhD in Fine Arts from Toi Rauwhārangi, Massey University, New Zealand. Born in Germany, she initially completed a goldsmith’s apprenticeship in Frankfurt, followed by a Master of Arts (VA) in metalsmithing at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
From 2000-2021 she held the positions of Principal Lecturer, Postgraduate Coordinator and Artist-in-Residence Coordinator at the Dunedin School of Art in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She is the co-founder of C/LINKProject, a collective intervention based on the values of craft education; public interaction; gifting and exchange; and collaboration in the field of contemporary jewellery. In 2019, upon invitation, she became a grant holder of Sweden’s IASPIS programme and spent three months at Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, where she explored the transformation of DNA sequencing instruments. During this time, she curated Allotropic in Munich, Germany, a jewellery and photography showcase about migration, capitalism, genome technology and identity. In 2024 her work was sought by the curatorial team of the exhibition Madrugada – Jewelry and the Politics of Hope at MUDE Design Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.
Bio
Appointed as Senior Lecturer in MFA Craft (Jewellery) in August 2025, Johanna Zellmer holds a PhD in Fine Arts from Toi Rauwhārangi, Massey University, New Zealand. Born in Germany, she initially completed a goldsmith’s apprenticeship in Frankfurt, followed by a Master of Arts (VA) in metalsmithing at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
From 2000-2021 she held the positions of Principal Lecturer, Postgraduate Coordinator and Artist-in-Residence Coordinator at the Dunedin School of Art in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She is the co-founder of C/LINKProject, a collective intervention based on the values of craft education; public interaction; gifting and exchange; and collaboration in the field of contemporary jewellery. In 2019, upon invitation, she became a grant holder of Sweden’s IASPIS programme and spent three months at Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, where she explored the transformation of DNA sequencing instruments. During this time, she curated Allotropic in Munich, Germany, a jewellery and photography showcase about migration, capitalism, genome technology and identity. In 2024 her work was sought by the curatorial team of the exhibition Madrugada – Jewelry and the Politics of Hope at MUDE Design Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.
Johanna Zellmer's research projects are published by Springer Nature and her work is held in public collections internationally. Her research operates at the intersection of ethics, science, biopolitics, the application of technology and contemporary jewellery. She posits the experience of wearing colliers primarily made from DNA sequencing instruments, used for the administrative enhancement of life, as a resistance to the biopolitical standardisation of life and self. With a view to the ethical challenges of biotechnology, the affective experience of Johanna Zellmer’s work raises questions about standardised social and cultural practices and the resulting hierarchies, separations, and power relationships in Aotearoa and beyond.
