Olivia Woodhouse focus is on exploring jewellery as a social signifier, bringing to life issues regarding the body and gender through playful designs. She aims to encourage the wearer to consider and question the essence within each piece of jewellery art, allowing retainment of body control through symbols and material qualities.

Olivia’s collection ‘To be fruitful’ explores the female body and simultaneously critiques its idealisation. By using suggestive ‘womanly’ fruits, such as peaches and pomegranates, and manipulating them into chains, pendants and rings, she conveys the ways that women are constrained from using their bodies freely. Olivia’s jewellery adopts glass as a symbol of both fragility and strength, offering an alternative perspective to society’s view of the female body as solely a reproductive tool.

Interpretative text by Laura Battisti, BA (Hons) Culture, Criticism and Curation