Alesha O'Connor

((·)) - To Hold, To Heal, To Protect, To Honour

Bachelor of Design Retail Experience Experience Design Exhbition and Event Design Story-telling Materiality Imagined Futures

Portfolio

A single peephole pierces the door, offering a framed glimpse into the jewellery exhibition. This controlled disclosure forms an architecture of curiosity, the panels softening into thresholds that gently blur the line between public and private. As viewers lean and tilt toward the narrow aperture, passersby on Nuffield Street are drawn to what is half seen and impossible to forget.

The Metaphysics of Adornment, Transformation and Becoming

Situated on Nuffield Street, Newmarket, Aotearoa, this project presents a jewellery atelier and exhibition that explores how design can transform trauma into tangible forms of comfort, empowerment, and human connection. Drawing on personal experience surviving a house fire, the work investigates adornment as a medium for emotional processing and companionship, using reclaimed and recycled metals alongside immersive spatial interventions to create artefacts and installations that engage the body and senses. Guided by Māori principles of manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga, kotahitanga, and tikanga, the design process emphasised ethical making, cultural respect, and relational responsibility. Collaborative partnerships informed the project, enriching its social impact and reach. The project achieves its aims by immortalising culture and human triumphs through bespoke pieces, advocating augmentation as a positive and transformative design approach, and demonstrating potential to contribute meaningfully to the mental health crisis in Aotearoa.

Monolithic panels curve and rotate, withholding the exhibition’s full narrative as light fractures through narrow apertures. These converging rays gather upon a slanted memorial table shaped by the solemn geometries of 9/11 stone memorials, where jewellery rests in sand and stone, turning architectural barriers into quiet mediators of reflection.

This jeweller’s workshop balances function and reflection, with defined zones for welding, sandcasting, polishing, and grinding. Wall slots store recycled metal sheets, while rotating wooden panels become shelves for adaptable storage. Cabinetry supports workflow, and warm, deliberate lighting highlights the tactile richness of stone, wood, and metal, honouring hand, craft, and environment.

'Silver Solace' is a curated jewellery collection of four artefacts, The Radial, The Temporal, The Spinal and The Carotid, designed for pulse points and nerves. Crafted from recycled metals using scans of my body, the pieces immortalise resilience and triumph, transforming jewellery into an extension of the self, offering comfort, connection and healing.