General Assembly is the industrial design term for a technical drawing that shows how all the parts of a product fit together. Our project makes reference to the traditional pick’n’mix marketing method often used to display and sell small, multiple items. It taps into our desire to choose, collect and consume.

The brooch form is the most universal, easy to wear and least gender specific jewellery object. It makes reference to badges, nametags, entry passes and insignia – the everyday jewellery that gives us access, indicates privilege and shows membership. By exhibiting this project we hope to demonstrate that serially produced objects can be made as important and valuable as one-offs.

Drawing inspiration from the philosophy of serial production demonstrated in the work of craftspeople such as Melbourne contemporary jeweller, Susan Cohn, and German master goldsmith, Friedrich Dau, we have produced interchangeable components of varying colour, texture, form and material that are laid out in a “production line” ready to pick’n’mix. Architectural details and signage found around Melbourne’s CBD were the starting points from which each design evolved.

We invite you to participate in our collaborative process and select the parts for a brooch that will become part of the exhibition. We encourage you to examine your motives for making a particular selection, as we believe that this process of choosing is fundamental to what makes any piece of jewellery desirable. Through the process of selection and assembly, the parts will take on a new preciousness –they will be elevated to the status of a completed, owned brooch and added to the wall display. During the exhibition, the production line of individual parts will begin to empty, as the wall fills up and the focus of the artwork will shift from our contribution to your contribution.

The completed brooches will be numbered, so that you can see the first brooch, the tenth brooch, the one-hundredth brooch, and observe the changes that occur through the series. We hope to generate interest and discussion as patterns of choice emerge and we encourage you to return and see how General Assembly progresses. The mass of assembled brooches will be a visual record of all the participants in the project.

At the end of the exhibition, each brooch will become a personal memento of involvement in the event, and a souvenir of the cultural life of Melbourne in 2007.

Phoebe Porter and Blanche Tilden, 2007