Rose by any other name

My next design concept was yet another poem which I was busy writing about a wife. The general idea around the poem is that like a rose would always remain a rose even if it were to have another name, a slave would also remain just that even if you have chosen to instead call her umakoti/ wife. This is my way of conversing on the sometimes abusive and destructive practices young wives are forced to suffer all in the guise of it being a right of passage or part of the native African cultures.

Figure 2: Ndongeni, S (2016). Rose set.

As I began to both writing the poem and designing of the piece of rose chain, I became to remember that in 2016 I had had a similar concept in mind. At the time I had not decided to go the narrative route but to use roses as they are one of the flowers widely associated with love and weddings, I had in fact entitled one of my blogposts with the title: ‘a rose by any other name’. This had been an intentional play on words for both my poem and my item of jewellery as that is a title of a title of a poem based on a lie said by none other than Juliet from the famous story “Romeo and Juliet.  She was trying to give forth the idea that just because the man she happened to have love was the son from a family who was in fact the enemy of her own family, would not suddenly make her love for him change. Which is what I want to convey with my use of the line, however not as the title of the poem. The picture in figure 2 is one of the designs which had included a rose or was rose inspired which I had designed in 2016, which is a pair of earrings and a pendant.

Figure 1: Ndongeni, S (2016). Rose by Another Name Series. Silver chain with roses.

I therefore decided to make a rose chain as seen in figure 2, which I was trying to use as a mouthpiece to converse the idea that even though one may take a rose and place it on a silver chain, the chain still was a chain which enslaved the wife. I had looked at several slave chain and found that they were mostly oval and this was the chain shape I had chosen to make. I had decided to solder the small roses onto the actual chain.  I still have yet to finish off the chain, because I am sill undecided as to how to finish off the piece. However I want it to have a slave chain look and feel to it.   Nonetheless I want the overall theme to display the idea that as much as it may look attract to the eye, it doesn’t change the fact that causes harm nor the fact that it there to enslave her.

Figure 3: Rose by another name series, brass and crystal beaded bridal piece.

The third development of the series was the piece seen in figure 3, where I expanded on the slavery idea by making brass neck and arm cuffs. I tried to add a bridal element to the piece by using the clear crystal beads instead if chains.