Evil Eye
*This piece has been sold. If you would like something similar, please contact us to start a custom order. Together, we’ll create something just for you!
Necklace: responsibly sourced sterling silver, responsibly sourced fine silver, repurposed silver, heat coloured titanium, cultured freshwater pearls, aventurine beads, ethically sourced garnet from the Queensland Gemfields.
The evil eye is a motif shared by many cultures around the Mediterranean Sea and predates the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In the days before the biblical God, the evil eye was not seen as an amusing superstition or as naïve magical thinking but as a real malevolent force that was at the heart of misfortune and suffering. Therefore, protection from the evil eye was correspondingly considered an essential and pressing need. The perhaps contrary strategy for warding off the evil eye’s gaze traditionally involved distracting it or reflecting it, which gave rise to many proliferations of eye-like or otherwise distracting imagery (such as the fig sign found in some Ancient Roman jewellery).
Jewellery can therefore be said to have once had a far more practical use than how we often think of it today, it afforded real protection from ill-will, misfortune, and suffering. In the present, it is arguably self-deceiving of us to think of contemporary jewellery as having lost this usage. If the evil eye can be understood as a force that works against us then the need for protection from it has hardly been transcended. It has only been fractured into a myriad of troublesome forces which we often feel overpowered by (such as climate change, disease, and inequality).
This necklace is a contemporary amulet, an empowering reminder to use one’s benevolence and resistance for protecting oneself and the world in the face of suffering.
Necklace length: 57cm.
*This piece has been sold. If you would like something similar, please contact us to start a custom order. Together, we’ll create something just for you!
Necklace: responsibly sourced sterling silver, responsibly sourced fine silver, repurposed silver, heat coloured titanium, cultured freshwater pearls, aventurine beads, ethically sourced garnet from the Queensland Gemfields.
The evil eye is a motif shared by many cultures around the Mediterranean Sea and predates the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In the days before the biblical God, the evil eye was not seen as an amusing superstition or as naïve magical thinking but as a real malevolent force that was at the heart of misfortune and suffering. Therefore, protection from the evil eye was correspondingly considered an essential and pressing need. The perhaps contrary strategy for warding off the evil eye’s gaze traditionally involved distracting it or reflecting it, which gave rise to many proliferations of eye-like or otherwise distracting imagery (such as the fig sign found in some Ancient Roman jewellery).
Jewellery can therefore be said to have once had a far more practical use than how we often think of it today, it afforded real protection from ill-will, misfortune, and suffering. In the present, it is arguably self-deceiving of us to think of contemporary jewellery as having lost this usage. If the evil eye can be understood as a force that works against us then the need for protection from it has hardly been transcended. It has only been fractured into a myriad of troublesome forces which we often feel overpowered by (such as climate change, disease, and inequality).
This necklace is a contemporary amulet, an empowering reminder to use one’s benevolence and resistance for protecting oneself and the world in the face of suffering.
Necklace length: 57cm.
*This piece has been sold. If you would like something similar, please contact us to start a custom order. Together, we’ll create something just for you!
Necklace: responsibly sourced sterling silver, responsibly sourced fine silver, repurposed silver, heat coloured titanium, cultured freshwater pearls, aventurine beads, ethically sourced garnet from the Queensland Gemfields.
The evil eye is a motif shared by many cultures around the Mediterranean Sea and predates the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In the days before the biblical God, the evil eye was not seen as an amusing superstition or as naïve magical thinking but as a real malevolent force that was at the heart of misfortune and suffering. Therefore, protection from the evil eye was correspondingly considered an essential and pressing need. The perhaps contrary strategy for warding off the evil eye’s gaze traditionally involved distracting it or reflecting it, which gave rise to many proliferations of eye-like or otherwise distracting imagery (such as the fig sign found in some Ancient Roman jewellery).
Jewellery can therefore be said to have once had a far more practical use than how we often think of it today, it afforded real protection from ill-will, misfortune, and suffering. In the present, it is arguably self-deceiving of us to think of contemporary jewellery as having lost this usage. If the evil eye can be understood as a force that works against us then the need for protection from it has hardly been transcended. It has only been fractured into a myriad of troublesome forces which we often feel overpowered by (such as climate change, disease, and inequality).
This necklace is a contemporary amulet, an empowering reminder to use one’s benevolence and resistance for protecting oneself and the world in the face of suffering.
Necklace length: 57cm.
