FLASHBACK - THE COMMISSIONER PROJECT
Disrupting the image, reclaiming control.
This piece explores the relationship between intimacy, consent, and anonymity through a set of silver earrings and a necklace featuring reflective discs in place of traditional stones. While appearing as refined adornment, the work is designed specifically for the red carpet environment, where it is activated by flash photography.
Drawing on the visual language of classic pearl jewellery, the design subtly disrupts this symbolism. Historically associated with femininity, purity, and passivity, pearl jewellery carries culturally embedded connotations that are deliberately subverted here through the use of reflective surfaces. The “pearls” are replaced with mirrored surfaces, transforming a traditionally passive object into one that resists visibility.
When photographed, these surfaces reflect flash back toward the camera, partially obscuring the wearer and disrupting image capture.
The piece consists of a pair of dangling earrings and a structured necklace that frames the face. Both incorporate reflective discs in place of traditional stones. The earrings are composed of circular elements suspended in articulated formations, allowing them to swing freely with the wearer.
This movement causes light to scatter unpredictably, shifting attention toward the material and away from Gillian Anderson’s face.
In contrast, the necklace sits flat against the body, forming a controlled, collar-like structure that frames the lower face and neckline. Its reflective elements are fixed in position, ensuring a consistent interaction with frontal flash.
This contrast between movement and stillness produces two modes of resistance: one dispersed and unstable, the other direct and controlled.
Inspired by Want, the work considers anonymity as a condition in which desire can exist without judgement.
It is further informed by the consent-led frameworks of Ita O'Brien, positioning visibility as something that can be actively negotiated rather than passively assumed.
The design responds to Gillian Anderson’s preference for minimal, structured silhouettes through a clean, controlled composition. While visually restrained at a distance, its conceptual intent emerges through interaction with light, aligning with her understated yet intellectually engaged public image.
By redirecting photographic flash back toward the viewer, the jewellery challenges the dynamics of looking, exposure, and power. Rather than presenting intimacy as inherently visible, the work proposes that the ability to control when and how one is seen is itself a form of agency.
In this way, the piece operates not only as adornment but as a subtle optical device - one that renegotiates visibility within a space where being seen is often assumed to be inevitable.
