LILIAN FUNG
Lilian Fung
Society Chatelaine
2024, silver-plated copper, steel wire, silver plated spoons, steel spoons, wooden spoons, plastic spoons and paper spoons
Photography by Chris Bowes.
ARTIST STATEMENT
LILIAN FUNG
Inspired by the phrase “born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth” and the historical form of the chatelaine, Society Chatelaine explores how material value can reflect social hierarchy. Spoons made from silver, steel, wood, plastic and paper are suspended from a silver-plated frame, with each material suggesting a different position within a hierarchy of wealth and privilege. By bringing precious, ordinary and disposable materials together within a wearable object, the work invites reflection on how value, status and class are constructed through the materials we use and assign meaning to.
PROFILE
Lilian Fung is a Melbourne-based contemporary jeweller working across metal and mixed materials. Her practice examines how value is constructed through material transformation and emotional attachment. Working primarily with non-precious metals, she repositions accessible and discarded materials as sites of meaning, questioning hierarchies within contemporary jewellery traditions. Through processes of reassembly and surface intervention, her works explore how objects carry both economic and effective weight.
