Silent conversation: prompting the share material experience through the digital narrative objects

Silent Conversation is a practice-based research project exploring the intersection of contemporary narrative jewellery and participatory interaction via digital platforms in the context of COVID-19 pandemic conditions. The research project provides the foundation for exploring methods of creating an interactive process between the body and jewellery in physical and virtual spaces. The research considers how participation can be regarded digitally through the jewellery experience. Through this research, we understand new information about the actions and behaviours of individual participants beyond the border and urban restrictions. By analysing and reflecting on the physical restrictions during COVID-19, I explored digital platforms to distribute and investigate narrative jewellery representations through wearers' activation in a shared material experience. The materiality, the handmade objects, digital collage, hand-portraiture taken as a ‘selfie’, and performance have all integrated to create a new concept of a virtual public self. As a researcher, I created a socially engaged methodology for the participants to share, connect and make public their visual narratives to engage an audience with the stories of their restrictive pandemic bodies.