Manon van Kouswijk's Out of the Office series began with 100 necklaces forming an installation work in 2014. A new edition of 20 pieces was made in 2019.
Each necklace is made from the plastic casings of paperclips, each laboriously cut into bead lengths, arranged and strung on cord.
All are identical in length, at 80cm diameter.
From the 2014 text by Manon and Meredith Turnbull:
"Made in China: The industrial economy of efficiently manufactured paperclips shipped around the world, bought for a period of time from a local stationery store. What happens to these small, compelling items when records are digital, stores in code, no longer flipped and ordered, clipped and filed away? In other hands they are unwound, coloured coating cut and stripped away. Then begins the considered process of stringing them bead-like onto thread, watching for patterns between pieces in a new codex of objects made in Melbourne."
Manon van Kouswijk is a Dutch artist and contemporary jeweller who lives and works in Melbourne.
