Cityscape – Bodyscape - Deganit Stern Schocken

Jonathan Ventura & Deganit Stern Schocken

Jonathan Ventura, Department of Inclusive Design, Hadassah Academic College, and
the Design Graduate Program, Shenkar Academy of Engineering and Design
Deganit Stern Schocken, Design Graduate Program, Shenkar Academy of Engineering
and Design
Abstract
One of the most innovative and interesting designed objects in ancient history is the
Roman fibula. This compact yet highly functional object, considered through the
lens of design theory and practice, presents a broad and deep variety of technological
innovation, elegant construction, and sociocultural distinction. The fibula’s attributes
mirror contemporary jewelry design, a comparison that led us to parallel the Roman
fibula with a series of contemporary iterations of this intriguing designed object. In
this essay, we will broaden the scope focusing on the various material attributes of
the Roman fibula, as well as its relevance and importance to contemporary jewelry
design. The fibula, as an intriguing case study, will reflect the unique work of
Stern Schocken in the field of art jewelry. Framed through an in-depth qualitative
interview, the fibula will highlight the theory, design process, and ideation found in
the practice of an art jewelry designer.

The Intricacies of the Contemporary Fibula
“Romans, that people in togas, the masters of all in existence.”
[Virgil, Aeneid, 1.282]
“Let arms yield to the toga, and laurels to laudation.”
[Cicero, De Officiis, p. 31]
As there are scarcely any contemporary variations of fibula in art jewelry or jewelry
design, we chose to consider the fibula series designed by Deganit Stern Schocken.
The design and use of the fibula start as early as the Bronze Age and as late as the
Middle Ages. However, we chose to focus on the Roman fibula for several reasons.
First, the Roman era is based on a rich and intricate material culture, unparalleled in
European history prior to the Industrial Revolution. When dealing with questions
of designed objects, then, this period is an almost automatic choice. Second, social
stratification as mirrored through material objects is another central feature of
Roman society, also critical to design history and theory. We will highlight the
unique features of aesthetics, configuration, and structure, combining a dialogue
between the chapter’s two writers and a scholarly recounting of the various venues
of the Roman and contemporary fibulasΔ. Hopefully, this will open a practical and
theoretical window into the design process of an influential jewelry designer.
Fibula and Roman Daily Life
“Finally, she makes her entrance, attended by hosts of retainers,
Draped in Sidonian fabric with needlework fringes, her shoulders
Armed with a quiver of gold, hair clasped by a golden tiara,
Cloaked in a bright purple mantle secured by a brooch-pin of pure gold.”
[Virgil, Aeneid, 4.136-9]
“When he shed tears of joy and said that he was indeed eager to do so, Scipio
thereupon presented the boy with a gold ring, a tunic with a broad stripe, and
a Spanish cloak, a golden brooch and a horse with his equipment; and ordering
horsemen to escort him as far as he desired, Scipio sent him away.”
[Titus Livius, The History of Rome, Book 27, chapter 19, verse 12]
Before delving into the essence of the fibula, let us consider briefly the design and
importance of the Roman toga. Contrary to the square Greek himation, the bottom
half of the Roman toga was at least half elliptical with rounded ends. It was worn by
both men and women, with the former wearing a loincloth (subligaculum) beneath it.

By the 2nd century BC, the Roman toga was worn by older men, over a tunic. It was
usually woven from wool, therefore dependent on the economy of sheep herding.
While losing popularity by the time of Augustus, it was still worn by men in official
occupations. Decorations and design on the fabric of the toga, such as the thick
purple stripe of the toga praetexta, symbolized status and political office (Stone, 2001).
However, jewelry is an even more interesting example of design ethics, since Roman

taste shifted from flashy gold to a more republican austere and minimalistic attitude
toward jewelry design. Roman legislation tells us an interesting story regarding
the social norms of personal ownership of jewelry. The Law of the Twelve Tables,
passed in 451/450 BC, limited the amount of jewelry that could be buried with the
deceased. Furthermore, the Lex Oppia, passed in 215 BC, limited the amount of gold
a Roman lady could wear to one half-ounce. Although the law was not enforced, it
was the social norm to keep to a certain modest austerity when wearing jewelry in
the republic. According to the ancient Roman authors, the most common pieces of
jewelry distinguishing Roman citizens by their rank in the republic were the bulla (a
necklace, usually given as a reward for special feats) and the gold ring. While the use
of the bulla was somewhat flexible, wearing the gold ring always symbolized a special
position of public mission (Stout, 2001). Interestingly, the fibula was not considered
jewelry but rather a functional piece of personal equipment, such as a hair pin, as
long as it was simply designed and not adorned with a precious gem. As a necessity
item, the fibulas were usually made of bronze. Indeed, the Roman fibula was not a
design evolution of the Etruscan fibulas but was rather influenced from Celtic origins,
with the most common design being the crossbow fibula (Higgins, 1980).
Therefore, we can surmise that the fibula was in fact the first material seam, prior
to it becoming a jewelry piece and a material attestation to status and sociocultural
norms. The fibula was the first intricately and specifically designed material object
dedicated to holding a fabric over one’s body. In other words, this minute metallic
object is situated in the middle of various sociocultural norms and conventions, key to
Roman and later—European—daily life.

The Contemporary Fibula: The Architecture of the Body
“By architecture of the city we mean two different things: first, the city seen
as a gigantic man-made object, a work of engineering and architecture that is
large and complex and growing over time; second, certain more limited but still
crucial aspects of the city, namely urban artifacts, which like the city itself are
characterized by their own history and thus by their own form. In both cases
architecture clearly represents only one aspect of a more complex reality, of a
larger structure; but at the same time, as the ultimate verifiable fact of this reality,
it constitutes the most concrete possible position from which to address the
problem.” [Rossi, 1982: 29]
“Not only is the city an object which is perceived (and perhaps enjoyed) by
millions of people of widely diverse class and character, but it is the product of
many builders who are constantly modifying the structure for reasons of their
own. While it may be stable in general outlines for some time, it is ever changing
in detail.” [Lynch, 1960: 2]
“The roads ought to be short, commodious, safe, delightful and beautiful.”
[Palladio, 1570, Book 3, chapter 1]
The contemporary fibula holds no functional meaning as it is not a structural part
of the garment. Therefore, the contemporary fibula is indeed a jewel harnessing
its configuration parts to a single unified object, enabling its wearing, as well as
materializing its aesthetic raison-d’être. While highly innovative in nature, rooted in
historic Roman material culture, the unique link between the fibula and urban design
and architecture needs clarification.
In her urban series of brooches, Stern Schocken emphasizes the importance
of the similarity between her material creations and the orderly chaos that is the
modern city. In both cases, the hidden surpasses the seen, mystery runs parallel to
mundane daily life, and the call to explore and wander aimlessly in narrow alleys is
a rare blessing. From a theoretical-practical point of view, several elements surface
through this comparison—movement (of the fibula’s parts as well as our body through
the urban setting), hierarchy versus a democratic material existence (similar to the
principles of Dao in Japanese aesthetics), the complex binary opposition of the hidden
and the exposed, and the closed structure versus a somewhat dynamic and fluidly
changing structural reality.

J: Can you explain, how did you start with the process? What was the first idea that
you had? And how did you create the connection between architecture and jewelry?
D: I studied at Bezalel, architecture and industrial design, which was then in
one department. When I finished this four-year study, a friend came to me and said,
“Listen, you should try jewelry; you must experience this amazing field.” So I think I
was very close to the study which I just finished. My starting point was to learn the
syntax and the semantics of the medium jewelry making. At this first stage, I chose
to give an updated interpretation to the Roman fibula, since I imagined the fibula
as an embodiment of the concept of architecture in a nutshell. As starting point, I
saw the fibula as the fundamental connection which constructs the “garment” (the
building) and so as representing the principal of connection per se. Then I thought
generally about mechanisms, which are an immanent subject in Modernism, as one
can obviously see in Centre Pompidou, where the construction is exposed and is not
hidden behind the facade.
J: Like infrastructure.
D: Like infrastructure. So, I looked at the mechanism behind the brooch, behind
the picture. I said, “Just a minute, I can use this element and make the aesthetics out
of it,” meaning, that I take the mechanism to the front of the stage, not behind the
stage. I wanted to make a story out of the mechanism which is usually behind the

facade. Then I analyzed what were the parts which combined the functional and the
aesthetic of the fibula. The immediate question is, “How do you hang an object on
clothing?” The outcome is a brooch.
J: The very essence of movement in this approach is reminiscent of the intricate
relation between function and aesthetics. Let us just consider this dilemma through
the classic approach of Viennese architect Adolf Loos. He explains his philosophy
on the “passion for smooth and precious surfaces” in Ornament and Crime (1908),
describing how ornamentation can have the effect of causing objects to go out of
style and thus become obsolete. It struck him that it was a crime to waste the effort
needed to add ornamentation, not only adding to the object’s price but also wasting
much needed labor and even harming the very essence of style. Loos introduced a
sense of the “immorality” of ornament, describing it as “degenerate,” its suppression
as necessary for regulating modern society. An interesting definition of “ornament,”
according to Loos, would be an addition to the main function of an object. But for
Stern Schocken, jewelry is not considered mere “ornament.” Its function by its nature
is rather to be an object that expresses and presents relevant cultural values. In this
context, the body necessarily comes into this equation, and another complexity
surfaces.

D: With fibulas it’s not the body, it’s the garment. There are different types of
jewelry which are connected directly to the body (like a ring or bracelet), unlike the
brooch in which we have a buffer zone between the object and the body, and it’s the
clothes.
J: So, the clothes are a mediator?
D: Not only a mediator; I made the clothes part of the brooch because it has a
vacant area, a void, that depends on the clothes you wear, and if it’s red or green, the
brooch looks different.
J: So, the void is filled by the garment?
D: Now, if we go into details, then in my kind of fibula brooch there are mainly
three elements which comprise it: these are the needle, the frame, and what catches
the needle—the clasp. All these elements with the cloth become the structure, i.e. the
brooch. Usually all these mechanisms work through movement by hinges. The hinge
enables the pin to harness the cloth and attach it by means of the clasp. These are the
elements, and I worked for three whole years on variations on this theme.
J: Can you say more about this?
D: It starts from the Classical fibula, which was the first “stitch” which held the
cloak on the body, and then followed all kinds of additional decorations. In fact, it
was a highly functional object. From this aspect, jewelry for me is a kind of (or a
miniature) architecture.
J: So, what are the various functions of this mechanism according to your work?
D: Now, in the Classical era, it was the object which held the “Roman” cloth. In
our time, it is another way of expressing the citizenship in art. Instead of just adding
a picture on the body, I consider the mechanism as a modern value and generate
through it an aesthetic system.

J: Therefore, you create a dialog or even a balance between …
D: Function and aesthetics.
J: Is there an ideological or political aspect to your point of view or “just” art?
D: Later on, in my work, I treated the political aspect more directly. The way I
looked at it at that time was subdued. But today I understand that it is not by chance
that I began with an object like the “safety pin” (fibula); that is typical to my inborn
culture. I was born in a kibbutz and internalized those social values in which there is
precedence to “safety” in the elementary sociopolitical sense, i.e. care for the common
basic needs.
This is the cultural background for the choice and also for the design of the fibula.
Priority is given first to the functionality of the brooch and after it to the variations
that grant a different character to each individual. The fibula also involves values that
were current in the architecture of this socialist period in my country: simplicity,
matter-of-factness (echoing ‘New Objectivity’), common partnership. This is an
aesthetic in which the emphasis is on activity and work that by themselves embody
beauty, movement, and social justice. The beauty is in the sphere of creative work (as
opposed to mundane labor, in the way Hannah Arendt defines it). But, as I said, at that
time I thought mainly in terms of a balance between feelings and logic or intellect.
When practicing design, you face the functional part of it which has always its fixed
laws, and at the same time the aesthetic spectrum of the variations (in shapes, scale,
color, balance, rhythm, etc.) which come into the practice of art.

J: Yet the basic elements stay the same?
D: Yes, all the brooches have absolutely the same structural elements (the frame,
the needle, and the clasp), but each looks different and that’s because in every brooch
each part is developed differently and shaped with care and attention so that it can
also be seen as independent.
J: So, it’s not fifty–fifty. You choose which one will take precedence.
D: One aspect is free, creative, and another is very strict. And it’s interesting.
Think about Chomsky and linguistics: a person is born with the linguistic system
in his head. There are laws; there are inborn systems. Out of it, personal language
evolves. And it is like this in jewelry as well as in design. For instance, there is another
way of fastening the brooch to the cloth, and it is a spiral that you just screw into the
cloth. It’s another way to show the mechanism and not hide it behind ornamentation.
But one must remember that dealing with mechanism, i.e. with the syntax, in
jewelry is not enough, because the parts are made of materials, and so one must
consider their semantic value as well, and in general the aspects of value in jewelry.

J: From an intellectual point of view?
D: Yes. Intellectual in the sense that jewelry is often connected with status and
ethical values. It’s obviously inherent to materials—for instance, gold versus silver
or iron (as expressed paradigmatically in the Greek myth about the five human
generations (Hesiod, “Works and Days,” 106–201). It symbolizes various sociocultural
attributes, and sometimes it also evokes different (daemonic) powers, like a talisman.
But I wanted to question the very concept of value. Why can’t I make a precious stone,
as a metaphor, from other materials, like cloth, or even water? I can make a stone
from water. The issue of materials is another aspect of architecture, and I considered
it as a totality. Urban structure presupposes material, bricks, mortar, stone, etc.
Structure also requires the non-material, like space or air. When we undo the
relationship between the material and the non-material, questions having to do with
concepts of permanence and value are raised. What is the place of the “stone” in the
city, in jewelry? And so, I initially referred to brooches as metaphors or analogies of
buildings. I thought that jewelry on a body creates a new focus resulting in a new set
of changing definitions. Brooches by themselves are to be seen as isolated buildings
defined in terms of their dimensions and their relationship to their surroundings. For
example, the openings in buildings (doors) are analogues to the openings (the void) in
the brooches, where the movement of attaching them happens.
Then single units placed on continuous lines create dynamic possibilities. Like
streets, they form a network—the city! Jewelry is spread on the body, its earth—“terra
firma”—from which these jewel events are extrapolated.
J: Would you say you follow in the footsteps of Adolf Loos and other Modernists?
D: I stress that aesthetics should come from intentions of not accepting things
as they are but rather questioning them. I like to express questions and not take
anything for granted. By looking at reality through this lens, I reveal new aesthetics. I
reveal whether something is an ornament or not. Our clothes together with our body
are in constant movement, and I see movement as a quintessence of a precious stone.
For me, movement is a precious stone.
J: What then is the particular purpose of a jewelry designer?
D: Jewelry is one of the fields that are connected to design, to art, architecture,
and engineering. And there is something amazing about it that it is generally the
territory of small objects, which you can hide and not see. I think hiding an object is
very important.
J: Could you explain?
D: Whenever you open a box, you reveal a treasure; this feeling of revealing
a treasure is a present. It’s like reading a line in a book and finding something
unpredictable. Think about these unique lines from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”:

“Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”
But you know, this is an intimate perception. Take, for example, the architecture we
see around us. We can’t escape the permanent presence of bad architecture. Jewelry
embodies the idea that often, as with “a sea change,” big objects (like buildings),
conceptually speaking, are small, while small objects are big (and “rich and strange”).
In this sense, jewelry could represent a kind of microcosmos. I don’t ignore the main
role of jewelry, to adorn people, but I think by looking at it in different directions, you
find different aspects. The concept of adornment is widened; it’s unfathomed.
J: But again, as a designer, you understand specifically how the body interacts
with an object.
D: Yes. I agree. For me, the body is like a canvas for the painter. The body is a
vessel. The body is three-dimensional; it is organic and in constant movement and
change. Actually, those brooches could be seen as analogies to the body as well. We
move the brooch’s elements like we move the functional parts of the body by our
choice. They possess movement (“hinge joints”), which is initiated by choice, and, in
this sense, it has an ethical meaning.
J: In what way?
D: The joints move but not automatically. It’s active. It’s your decision when you
do it. It’s the same here. You decide when to manipulate the parts of the brooch. In
this context, you may imagine that these brooches are a kind of small people, and
they have different limbs and their idiosyncratic movements.
J: I see a groove.
D: Yes, this groove holds the needle and it is attached to a bigger part. In each
of the brooches something else is developed as a part and at the same time as an
independently shaped fragment. Here the part of the frame is just a line and the
“clasp” part is emphasized.
Here, unlike the former brooch, the frame is emphasized, and the same may apply to
the needle.
J: It’s three-dimensional?
D: Here the needle is emphasized in the design. It has moveable parts, and hence
the transformation to 3D occurs.

When comparing the Roman and contemporary fi bulas, several conclusions come to
mind. Cultural anthropologists focusing on the body highlighted the various ways
in which our bodies mirror social norms and conventions (see, for example, Turner,
2008; Mauss, 1973; Scheper & Hughes and Lock, 1987). The brooch serves as mediator
between the body, the urban space, and the sociocultural context of daily life. Fibulas,
therefore, either in the Roman streets or our contemporary daily lives, serve to project
our self in a social context. Furthermore, one of the unique aspects of the brooch is its
ability to create a dynamic and ever-shifting landscape of the body and its garments.
D: For me it belongs to a dynamic structural principal of “Re-place-ments,” a name

I gave to one of my exhibitions. Replacements are an attempt to join different places,
to create a territory, i.e. to integrate and interrogate a city. Jewelry is a replacement,
an attempt to organize fragments so as to emphasize the process that will keep
the fragmentary as the principle of organization. The pressure is to transform the
fragment, the partial, and the necessarily incomplete into a whole that will give
expression to its fragmentary nature.
J: How did you materialize the abstract analogy to cities, streets, and buildings?
D: First, we must remember that for jewelry the body is a different background
from the space in architecture or the wall in art.

J: How is it different?
D: It’s different! The body is in constant movement. So, I designed long pieces in
which there were few brooches and then pieces which spread all over the body. The
body with those pieces became like a CITY.
The jewelry piece placed on our body cannot be experienced as a whole but as a
dynamic series of events. Our gaze, therefore, is always originated from a particular
time, place, and angle, seeing only fragments and what lies between them. It is a
mystery. It allows space for the imagination. This is basic to the human condition not
to be able to see it all at once, and it motivates questioning and searching. From this
aspect we may use the fable of J. L. Borges’s “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”:
in the desert labyrinth you cannot search, and you cannot find the way out, so there
you die. While in the constructed cultural labyrinth (i.e. the city), there is a lot that
can’t be immediately seen, and hence you must move, search, and ask. This is a
ground for finding ways, solutions, and a way to live and survive. The idea of missing
something or leaving something to be discovered is vital.
J: Could you explain?
D: It’s inherent to the Way (of life), where missing means desire and movement
toward finding, and so what is found gains by surprise its value and its aura as a
revelation. This is an essential aspect of the city.
J: Retrospectively how do you see this first stage in your work; did it have any
influence on your next stages?
D: First, in working so meticulously, I learned what practical research in design

is, and it followed my work from then on. And then at the end of the 1990s, while I
was working intensely on “one of a kind” pieces, I was swept away from my jewelry
bench and asked to found a jewelry department in Shenkar College of Engineering,
Design and Art, in Ramat-Gan, where I was told that the orientation should be mainly
industrial production. For me it was a change in direction and an amazing challenge
and experience.
Through engaging with those issues around serial production versus creation of
“one of a kinds” was born my exhibition How Many Is One at Tel Aviv Museum (2003).
Industry aims to produce many and the same, while I, as an artist of “one of a kinds,”
took into account and invested value in the deviation and irregular phenomena in
production.
The errors, accidents, and the leftovers that occur in the casting process now
became part of the object’s visibility. In a way, my How Many Is One project is an
encounter of ideas of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas concerning “new urbanism.”
In this project, the “architectural” objects are not designed and made according to a
premeditated plan but they rather just happen! The decisions which are made in this
deconstructive work process are spontaneous, aleatory, open, and receptive.
As a teacher who works with the students on many different projects, I myself
over the years became (in my work as artist) engaged in different issues, including
social and political. In this way, I find a fruitful correlation between my work as
teacher and as artist. It’s interesting that now I find myself combining my first steps
with my later work, for example in the series In the Air and Two Sides.
Little Hinges, Movement, and in Between—The Body, Fabric, and Life Itself
“[Paris] hung before him … the vast bright Babylon, like some huge iridescent
object, a jewel brilliant and hard, in which parts were not to be discriminated nor
differences comfortably marked. It twinkled and trembled and melted together,
and what seemed all surface one moment seemed all depth the next.”
[Henry James, The Ambassadors]
This series of contemporary fibulas follows the footsteps of De Stijl designers striving
to bring the hidden mechanisms and engineering traits of objects to center stage.
In this bold and innovative approach, designers such as Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964)
created a new style, one that can almost echo two of the ten principles of good design,
proposed by German designer Dieter Rams—“good design is as little design as possible”
and “good design is honest.” Indeed, the Roman fibula is an epitaph of such principles,
made up of only four parts, which led, unsurprisingly, to its modern and even more

frugal descendant—the safety pin. This series of fibulas shifts between two somewhat
opposing design principles: a classic, functional, and frugal one, viewed in the Roman
brooches, focusing on the essence of embodied social norms, and, on the other hand, a
playful suggestion, stemming from the shift of a 2D object into a 3D mechanism. The
hierarchy of the contemporary fibulas offers another difference from the Roman brooch.
While in the Roman case, the essence of the brooch is the part seen after the fastening
of the toga, i.e. the decoration, in the contemporary fibulas the answer is more complex.
As we see, this simple yet intricate design renders the hierarchy between the parts
irrelevant. Focusing on the creation of a 3D playful material reality, the fastening pin,
the hinge, or the main “decorative” part of the brooch are all equally important and
influence the visual geography of our bodily contours. Contrary to the classic Roman
brooch, the contemporary fibula’s essence lies in its 3D existence, meaning that its
design offers various interpretations from all sides.
One of the innovative features of the fibula, the Roman and contemporary, lies in
its ability to create motion. In fact, in the designs of Stern Schocken we can identify
three venues of movement. First, functional movement, which enables us to attach
a brooch to the fabric of our clothing; second, the semiotic, or aesthetic movement
manifested by the shifting of materials, shapes, and colors; and finally, the movement
of the brooch on our body, constantly shifting its display while we walk the urban
space. In this essence, movement is fluid and created continuously, as it moves on our
body and through our material surroundings.
The simple parts of the fibula enable a somewhat contradictory existence. Apart
from enabling movement and material flexibility, the functional taming of this
miniature sculpture through the use of the pin holds an extra air of discipline over the
other parts of the fibula.
Epilogue
As we have seen in this essay, the presence and visual-material importance of the
contemporary fibula far exceeds its roots in Roman history. Juxtaposed between
architecture, product design, art, visual communication, and engineering, it
transforms these small and highly complex objects in an interesting case study to the
very definition of design. Questions dealing with the relation between function and
aesthetics, movement, dialogue between the body and material objects, and the gap
between asking questions and the need for answers are all manifested in the design of
these contemporary iterations of the Roman fibulas.
In a nutshell, we can stress that the interpretation of contemporary fibula
revolves around a combination of hierarchy, repetition, structure, display, and

movement. The element of hierarchy, or lack of, is manifested in that each part of
the brooch is perfect and exists in and of itself (again, while enabling movement);
the movement of our body forms the part into a whole designed structure, devoid of a
specific modus operandi.
The element of movement as a transition from seeing to becoming mirrors the
urban pendulum depicting a connection point (hinge) enabling movement through
display and use. As in the famous flaneur manifested by Walter Benjamin, the urban
small-scale fibulas allow for a leisurely wandering in one’s own imagination. In fact,
the potential of movement is almost more important than the actual movement.
The fluidity of possibilities renders these objects an almost democratic attribute.
The essence of movement in the contemporary fibula, then, could be articulated as a
transition from seeing to becoming, bridging the open-closed dichotomy of a classic
brooch, a democratic or voluntary movement, movement as material possibility
allowing mystery through the unknown, and the potential of visual and material
change.
Yet going back to the start, one must wonder if there is any relation between the
Roman fibula and its contemporary counterpart, as presented by Stern Schocken.
What are the similarities between the two? An interesting starting point would be the
issue of function. While the Roman fibula is almost the purest material manifestation
of function, the contemporary fibula is much more complex. If we follow once more
the footsteps of Adolf Loos, the ornamentation is inherently present in the structure
or configuration of the brooches, further redrawing the boundary between function
and aesthetics. In fact, the importance of function in the brooch could not be more
central—the function imbues the different parts with meaning stemming from their
taming through design.
A possibility of a dialogue between the two could be viewing the frame as
symbolizes the intellect, while the fluent shapes symbolize the emotional aspects of the
brooch. Another possibility could be the inherent contrast between the materials (metal
etc.) and anti-matter or the negative space (Ma in Japanese aesthetics) in the brooch.
These are further manifested in the fluidity or movement, the ability of choice by the
user, versus the rigidity of the frame. Another interesting layer lies in the innate feature
of the fibula to allow a transition from 2D to 3D in an instant, thus crossing the line
between an abstract, almost graphic element into a 3D material object.
Finally, a clear and almost ephemeral bridge connects the Roman fibula and
Stern-Schocken’s versions of it. The intelligent use of color, materials, shifting
configurations and flexible equilibrium all amount to the next phase in the historic
fibula’s evolution. In an almost self-sustaining paradox, these fragile objects,

miniature sculptures, allow through a repetition of movement a myriad possibility of
visual interpretation. We can only imagine these innovative fibulae inspiring a new
generation of jewelry designers to explore the next stage of this incredible historic
object.
References
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Higgins, Reynold Alleyne (1980). Greek and Roman Jewellery. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Livius, Titus. The History of Rome, Books 27 and 39. From: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
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