Story: Crafts and applied arts

The influential 1988 exhibition Bone Stone Shell highlighted the growing importance of natural, indigenous materials in New Zealand jewellery. Warwick Freeman created this pāua-shell bead necklace for the exhibition in 1987. Freeman started to work with pāua in the early 1980s and held an exhibition called Pāua Dreams in 1981. He wanted to elevate pāua, which had hitherto been associated with Kiwiana souvenirs, as a precious material.