Post-Colonial Gold — A Counter-Archive

Post-Colonial Gold

Post-Colonial Gold repositions gold not as luxury, but as a carrier of memory; not as a status symbol, but as evidence — of extraction, of displacement, of value that is never neutral.

The collection operates as anti-jewellery. These wearable sculptures suspend gold’s traditional function as ornament and instrument of prestige. No affirmation of status. No aesthetic harmony that conceals power. Gold is removed from its assumed neutrality.

What happens when gold is no longer adornment? Can value emerge beyond accumulation — intellectual, historical, ethical? Post-Colonial Gold approaches this question through form, tension and material displacement.

In dialogue with artistic practices that confront colonialism and systems of value, the work situates itself within a broader historical rupture: the shift from sacred material to quantified resource. Gold moves from aesthetic object to conceptual structure; from ornament to inquiry.

Rather than restoring purity, the collection preserves friction. Each object holds the trace of ideological transformation. Possession shifts into position. Material becomes argument.

In a world still structured by extractive economies, the project asks: what constitutes value once ornament disappears?

Post-Colonial Gold transforms gold into critical presence — wearable, yet not decorative; visible, yet never neutral.

Within this body of work, “gold” signifies post-colonial gold: constructed rather than mined. The material choice reinforces the conceptual position — value redefined beyond extraction.

Post-Colonial Gold
Concept & Text: Annelies Nuy
© 2026

The female artists referenced here do not function as illustration, but as epistemological anchors. Their work articulates alternative systems of value in which the body, the earth, memory, and collective experience are central.

The collection thus operates as a counter-archive:
not against history, but against the reduction of value to matter.

In essence:
Postcolonial Gold redefines gold from an economic instrument of power into a spiritual and ethical carrier of value, inspired by female artists who construct worth as contribution rather than possession.