a mechanism: a device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.

Believed to date back to the 4th millennium BC, the wheel and other mechanisms that followed it were developed as tools to enable humans to move objects from place to place.

Mechanisms require the application of gravity or an external force to activate them. This project explores how the motion of taking a ring out of its box can be translated into the unexpected.

For a movement to be unexpected activating it cannot be a conscious choice. A ring must be taken from its box in order to be worn and so lifting it is not a considered action but a necessary part of wearing the ring.

In the box the stone hangs below its setting. But by taking the incomplete ring from its box the wearer unknowingly creates a combination of gravity and vertical motion enough to raise the stone into the empty setting and complete the ring.

to animate:  to impart motion to / to give life to.

My work explores the potential mechanisms have to become animators of objects by imparting motion where it is not expected and injecting playfulness and life into conventionally static jewellery forms.